Swiss Knife
by JMK758
Summary: Season 1 Finale. The NCIS battles a deadly, implacable foe. Agents will die, lives will be changed and all will be revealed. This concludes the arc begun in 'Sacramental Seal'. Please R&R, don't give away the surprises.
1. More Betrayals

This is my eleventh NCIS Mystery and concludes my First Season. The list of stories became so extensive I moved it to my Profile.  
The usual legal disclaimers apply. The characters appearing in these stories are fictional with no similarity to anyone, living or dead.  
Please Review .  
Rating: T or NCis-17. Death, Violence, Intrigue, Mystery.  
Warning: Prologue contains spoilers of the previous episode, 'John 8:7'.

Swiss Knife  
By: JMK758  
Prologue

Tim McGee is startled by the tug from behind which yanks his gun out of the holster at his left hip. As he whirls he cannot believe that Shav – NCIS Chaplain the Reverend Siobhan O'Mallory to the others –holds his gun two inches from his face.

This close, the black barrel is a cannon's. He tries to see her eyes without moving his head more than a hair's breadth. Though her eyes are tight with confliction, they're not dead.

But he knows that if he moves a fraction of an inch, he will be.

oo

He and Siobhan had come to Headquarters the morning after their capture of the blackmailer Edward Samson, who had made the lives of dozens of women – including Shav – a living hell for his own profit. Now all of Samson's pictures of trapped women sit in boxes on Ziva David's desk, Samson sits in a Holding Cell and the agents had gathered this morning to discuss the deposition of that case. Tim had not even reached his desk to put away his weapon and shield before being drawn into the conversation.

That was when Abby Sciuto came up from her Forensics Lab in characteristic elation.

"_Gibbs_, _Gibbs_!" Abby had cried as she ran into the bullpen, "you've gotta _see_ this. Hi Siobhan, congratulations."

"Thanks," O'Mallory answered, barely keeping up with the 'Caf-Pow!'-energized woman.

"See what, Abs?" Gibbs asked, trying to keep her focused, which was more of a challenge than usual. She was exceptionally pleased with herself and anxious to share it.

"Remember when I broke the programming on all those brainwash disks you confiscated from Sam Richards' patients?"

It hadn't been long ago. "What did you find?"

"Well, I'm done examining every one of them; I had to be sure there were no variations in the coup d'état. Once you filter out all the hinky music which is supposed to send you into La-La land, you're left with a series of progressively worsening suggestions that ultimately become directions. They're so low and so fast the ears cannot hear them, but the brain does. Stage one starts out nice and mellow, a bit of resentment, a bit of aggravation, but by the end of an hour or so you're ready to hurt somebody. It goes on over and over all night, every time you try to sleep.

"Later versions reinforce the need, you actually get _addicted_ to the music; you've got to keep coming back to it. That's why I was having so many problems, I came in in the middle of the program, so to speak. Outwardly you're fine, you're programmed to act like nothing's going on, but inside you're turning into a brainwash junkie.

"They get worse as you go along, but every single one of them contains the kill command. You're supposed to kill the one you love the most - presumably your husband or wife who's in the Service, then do yourself the same way. The instructions get more specific as the disks are switched one for another, presumably as Richards got to know more and more about you, but even 'stage one' will be enough to make you kill on command if you listen to it often enough."

"Abby." Gibbs didn't actually say 'get to the point', his tone did.

"Well, every one of them had the same key command - all but one."

This news was as significant as it was unpleasant. No one had to work too hard to reach the conclusion. "Another Doctor?"

"That's my guess too, but how it could happen that one of the disks could wind up in the group Richards had–"

"DiNozzo, David, check the histories of every patient, did anyone see anyone else but Richards? McGee, get back on that secret pocket thingy in his computer, tear it apart until you find something. Lee, you and I are going out to interview this woman with the different disk," he turned to Abby, "who is it?"

"Mrs. Ann West, her husband's Major Tom West, Army."

Gibbs pulled out his cell phone; he wanted Col. Hollis Mann of Army CID in on this one from the top.

x

"What about this command," DiNozzo asked, "could it be triggered accidentally?"

"Nope. Just like Richards' bunch it's so obscure you'd probably never hear it these days. It's from a pair of children's cartoons from years and years ago, they probably don't run them anywhere but in the Museum of Broadcasting. He used 'Courageous Cat and Yogi Bear'. This other one is 'Secret Squirrel and Batfink'."

"Well done, Abby," Gibbs said, "get–"

What he would have ordered was cut off as Tim felt a sharp, unexpected tug at his left, his Sig being yanked out of its holster. He turned quickly, surprise giving way to astonishment as he discovered Siobhan holding his gun inches from his face.

Abby's quiet whisper was loud in the stillness. "Oh _crap_!"

oo

No one moves as Siobhan, locked in conflict, holds the gun inches from Tim's face. The distress in her eyes is at sharp odds with her posture. "Timmy…" she gasps, struggling to resist the compulsion to kill her beloved friend.

The gun in her trembling hand shakes so hard he fears it might go off.

"You won't hurt me, Shav," Tim assures her with unreasonable faith, trying to hide how hard his heart is pounding. None of the others, brainwashed as Siobhan is, had been able to resist the compulsion to kill. "I believe in you."

"Timmy, _please_! I can't – I can't–" She tries to put the shaking gun down, her arm won't obey her.

"You won't kill me, Shav, I–"

She squeezes the trigger.

Chapter One  
More Betrayals

Siobhan squeezes harder, harder still and Gibbs and DiNozzo grab her arms, trip her backward. They bear her to the floor, not wanting to hurt her but they pin her arms to either side of her head, Gibbs pulls the gun from her hand and pushes it aside.

She struggles against them, not wanting to fight. McGee, having felt his heart leap into his throat, feels about to collapse in relief. Deeply shaken, he doesn't want to believe Gibbs and Tony are holding the struggling woman on her back in the middle of the bullpen. This is worse than a nightmare.

Then he gets a good look at his gun in her hand and relief washes away too many emotions. He reaches down and picks up the Sig from the floor. "Shav, I'm so glad you never learned anything about guns," he tells her, pushing the gun back into its holster, "the safety is still on."

Siobhan continues struggling, the fear on her face at odds with her body which still fights to kill Tim. "Help me! _Please_!" Gibbs reaches behind her neck under her red hair and squeezes firmly. In seconds her movements begin to slow until gradually she passes out, laying limp upon the Squad Room carpet.

"Abby! That thingy you did to deprogram yourself–"

"I can try, Gibbs, but–," she can't say it. She had not received the 'kill' command, Siobhan had.

"Don't try. _Do_!" He and DiNozzo lift Siobhan back up, supporting her between them. "Where?"

"The Lab."

They follow her, McGee with them, but Gibbs looks back. "Where do you think you're going? You stay _away_ from her. Remember, once she kills you, she does herself."

"Gibbs?" Abby doesn't want to correct him.

"It's worse?"

"If she can't kill him, she–"

"Don't say it. _Fix_ it!"

xx

Abby leads Gibbs and Tony into the Forensics lab, the unconscious woman supported between them. They carry her through into the inner lab and to the day bed in the far left corner of the room where they ease her down.

When they look across the room, the men are astonished to see Abby removing a white straight jacket from the bottom drawer of one of her cabinets.

"Abby..." Gibbs doesn't even want to get into the inappropriateness of the garment.

"I got it back from Mike Mawher's shop." She sees the look on his face. "The Director approved it. It's mine, I _paid_ for it - I even still have the receipt."

He doesn't want to discuss it, there are more important concerns. Together he and DiNozzo place the heavy canvas garment on the unconscious woman, not cinching it tightly but nonetheless secure. Gibbs isn't concerned Mother O'Mallory will hurt Abby: in her current state she's more dangerous to herself.

Siobhan is already showing signs of returning consciousness, and in moments her eyes are open.

"What happened?" She's still groggy, and her memories come back in a jumble.

"What do you remember?" Gibbs counters, looming over her.

"I was–" she gasps, eyes wide in fright as she tries to sit up, astonished to find herself encased in a white straight jacket. She pulls harder, her struggles increase as she grows frantic. "_I was pointing a gun at Timmy_! Is he–?"

"He's fine," Gibbs tells her, trying to placate her, "so will you be."

"Let me go!" She struggles harder against the tight material. "Please, you _have_ to let me go!"

"Why?" It's a reasonable question, the answer is not.

"I have to ki–" she stops, realization tearing at her. "Oh my _God_!"

"Listen," Abby says intently, pushing into the space between the two men until her face is inches from Siobhan's, grasping her shoulders and holding on until she has the distraught woman's attention. "I can help you, but you have to trust me." Siobhan continues to pull, fighting the grip. "_Stop it_. You have to fight it."

"I want to – but it's making me–!"

"I know what it's doing. You have to fight it. You _can_ fight it!"

"It wants me to kill Timmy!"

"That's not going to happen. Now do you keep fighting the jacket until you exhaust yourself or do you fight that bastard?"

Gradually Siobhan stops struggling, her will overcoming the compulsion. They can see in her eyes how difficult it is, but now the fight is within her.

x

"Now we're going to lock you in here where I can help you. I could have them tie you to the bed but I don't want to restrain you. You have to trust me – and cooperate."

"I–" To be tied up on a bed and locked in this small room, trust comes hard, the words harder still. "I trust you."

"I'll have to make sure you stay safe, but I don't want to keep you tied up. You have to be relaxed, to listen to this music and the suggestions you won't be able to hear."

"I'll try." She tries to sound assured, but the words tremble instead.

Abby reaches out. "I'm going to take your glasses." Siobhan hesitates, looking up at her distrustfully. Being helpless is not a pleasant thing, and she's more helpless without her glasses than just being tied up. "If you can't hold out against the urge to kill Tim, it'll make it a lot harder if you can't _find _him."

She nods reluctantly, but she does it. "Take them. Take them before I change my mind."

x

As Abby carefully removes the aids, for Siobhan the world changes from a sharp image to an indistinguishable blur of light and dark.

"What can you see?"

"Nothing," she gasps, not liking it, "nothing at all." She hates the feeling of helplessness it gives her. She may be among people she trusts, but it is still hard to endure.

"Really?"

Siobhan is reluctant to admit that "My vision is, well, I'm legally blind. With the glasses I'm fine; without them all I see is a hazy blur. I can't see you - anything."

"That ought to do it." Abby declares as Gibbs and Tony begin to unstrap the jacket. "The door is locked, the lab is locked. But someone – either me or a female agent – will be with you every minute. If you need anything before I start just speak up. I'm going to get something that will help you sleep, and then I'm going to start the same process that cured me."

"Will it work?"

Abby is very grateful the woman can't see her face. "It worked for me."

xx

Gibbs, on his way back to the Squad Room, diverts to the fourth floor, on the MTAC level but through the right door and then left and down the hall. Among the rooms lining this corridor is the office of another MCR Team. The room is laid out differently than downstairs, but though enclosed, this office is as spacious as Gibb's bullpen.

Four desks face one another in pairs along each long wall to the right of the door, the boss' desk immediately to the right. A large plasma screen dominates the far wall, each desk has a filing cabinet and a wastebasket beside it, making the layout efficient though distinctly Spartan. Robert DiMarco feels it helps his people concentrate if there's a minimum of distraction available. At the moment DiMarco is alone; the Senior Agent greets Gibbs and then returns his attention to the paper before him. Gibbs waits - patiently - for him, while looking at what DiMarco is writing.

"Interesting?" DiMarco asks, noting his colleague's very obvious attention.

"It does make it easier tilting my head this way," Gibbs quips, commenting on the angle of the paper as DiMarco writes left handed.

"You're losing your sense of the covert."

"Only among friends."

The older ex-Marine puts aside the paper, deciding there's no point in trying to write until he gets Gibbs out of his grey hair. "What have you got?"

"I'm more interested in what you've got." It'll be a fair exchange of information but Gibbs' curiosity will not allow him to go first. The teams these men head are gathering information on the members of Natasha Klein's terrorist cell, which had kidnapped and tortured McGee and Lee to obtain the Delphi Code. Gibbs has decided it's time to see what's been compiled.

"Kimmel and Sullivan," DiMarco begins, leaning back in the chair so he needn't crane his neck to look up at his counterpart, "were something of a mixed breed. Kimmel was definitely the leader of the pair and he was no Mensa candidate.

"Sullivan started his career very small time and never graduated beyond the fake Rolex level; he was an annoyance to the LEOs rather than a challenge, one of those you barely bother with. A string, no, make that a yardstick, of convictions for small time cons and petty capers. He never even made it to felony status; every conviction was for petty garbage. He'd spend days or weeks inside, come out and start right up again. Eventually the LEOs developed a routine: first of the month write out the alimony check, pay the car bill, bust Sullivan..."

"What about Kimmel?"

"Now there, Gunny," the former Lieutenant sits forward, "we hit pay dirt. Where Sullivan was just a messy low-life, Kimmel was in it up to his filthy ass. Protection, numbers, prostitution, drugs of every flavor, bookmaking, assault, extortion – it's a wonder there were enough hours in the day for him. But the interesting thing was he wasn't Mafia."

That is an interesting wrinkle. Was his involvement with the others of this terrorist cell enough to shield him from being absorbed by Organized Crime? If so, how strong was the backer?

But Gibbs doesn't have to wonder how a lone runner stayed out of prison; he's sure he knows. "The Patsy Gambit."

"You know it. No matter what he was into, he always had someone to do the heavy lifting. He stayed clean but the patsy always went down for the fall."

"So Sullivan was the next in the series."

"He would have been if the gang of them hadn't gotten together - and they didn't have powerful supporters I still haven't found. Klein was the cell leader and she kept the four of them together; no sacrificial pawns for her - unless it was to be on her say so."

"Do you know how they hooked up with this scheme to wipe us out?"

"No, but you're gonna tell me, she was on your plate."

Gibbs gives him everything he has. Collectively it paints a good picture. The only thing missing is the artist.

xxx

Tim, seated at his computer, is trying very hard to learn how his friend, whom he had just worked so hard and illegally to save from devastating exposure, could have fallen victim to Samuel Roberts' dastardly machinations, especially when the amoral Psychiatrist is dead.

He blames himself. If he were more forthcoming about NCIS' cases, if it had ever occurred to him to 'burden' her with the sordid details of his investigations, she would never have fallen prey to this.

But when, and how, had she been infected? They'd traced every one of the victims from the encrypted, secret pocket on Richards' hard drive. Ziva, Tony, Michelle and he had inspected the files of every one of Richards' patients and it's inconceivable that his partners would withhold anything. Furthermore, Siobhan doesn't fit the victim profile, and her attachment to the Navy, to NCIS, is weeks old. Not enough time...

"There's no two ways around it," he declares to Ziva and Michelle, wishing Gibbs and DiNozzo were back so hr'd have more people to bounce these thoughts off, "there has to be another Doctor out there distributing the disks."

"Well, who is Mother O'Mallory seeing?" Ziva asks, not liking her own conclusion being confirmed. Gibbs had assigned them to investigate Abby's theory that there is a second person distributing another set of disks. When all other possibilities had been eliminated, they have to admit that only one answer remains.

Things had been bad enough when they had thought they had wrapped up that case. It's especially galling to discover that they have not.

"I don't know, but I intend to find out." He snatches up the phone so hard that if the handset had been alive he'd have broken its neck.

"Tim?"

"Yes, what is it, Michelle?"

"Sir," she begins diffidently; it's just a short while that she is on a first name basis with him, now she has to get into his personal…. "I just wanted to point out that, from all our reports, Sally MacDiamond, when she killed herself, didn't even hesitate in doing so. There was also nothing in the Joralemon bedroom to indicate there had been a struggle or any other disturbance."

He puts the phone down. "Your _point_?"

Michelle tries to keep her drive, not to falter under his impatient demand, "Sir, Reverend O'Mallory fought it, we all saw it. She got the 'kill command' but she fought it. In the end her finger pulled the trigger, but _she_ didn't shoot you."

"Thank you, Michelle," he says more considerately. He knows what she's trying to do and appreciates it. They both believe Shav's going to recover. They believe in Abby. She had cured herself, she'll cure Shav.

Tim devoutly prays she will.

xx

"Father Donaldson," the priest says as he picks up the telephone, having been informed by Church Secretary Ellen Meyers that he has an urgent call from NCIS. Ever since the latter half of July, since Mother O'Mallory had been recruited by this Agency, there never seemed to come a call from NCIS that's good news. "Yes, she is," he answers Agent McGee's question, not knowing why he should. The last time he'd seen the man it was in this room, when he'd agreed to help Siobhan deal with a blackmailer. Now McGee wants information Donaldson himself is not privy to. "No, someone else, that's not the name. Why?"

"She _what_?" Donaldson barely manages to keep his seat. Yes, the trend is holding firm.

As he listens, his incredulity races his outrage, and he must work very hard to keep from lashing out at the agent. "I know she's seeing someone for help but I haven't asked – all I have is a name. If she wanted me to know she'd have tol–

"All right, I'll see what she has in her desk. I'll get back to you. And McGee - I'll hold you personally responsible for whatever happens to her. She turned to you for help–

"Yes, I'll call you right back." He doesn't quite slam the phone down, but it does take great restraint.

x

Getting up and crossing the room, he sits down at Siobhan's desk and begins to do something that a minute before he would never consider, invading her personal space to, admittedly, try to find a way to help her. That fact doesn't make it easier.

Fortunately he doesn't have to invade very deeply. As soon as he opens the drawer he finds her Palm Pilot in the forward compartment. He turns it on and finds her Contacts. The information he wants is in the Business sub-directory, the Personal section he can leave alone.

There are only four Doctors listed, only one dealing with problems of the mind.

xx

"Doctor Elizabeth McFadden," McGee reports twenty minutes later when he completes his search. Gibbs and DiNozzo have finally returned and he can cover everything once. It's already taken far too long to resolve this nightmare, even though a look at the clock won't let him deny again that it's only been an hour. "She has an office in Springwood, and she's on the authorized list of Doctors who can treat Servicemen, just like Richards was."

"What Bozo is authorizing these nut jobs?" Gibbs demands, feeling the need to give someone a good slap.

"We did," DiNozzo announces, having called up additional information on the woman. "That is, NCIS did," he corrects himself just in time, having caught his boss' glare. "The check-off was signed by Robert DiMarco and approved by Director Morrow about two months before he left for Homeland Security."

Gibbs will pay another visit to his old friend, but later. Right now, they have a dirtbag to dig up.

xxx

The five agents assemble outside the office of Dr. Elizabeth McFadden and the glare Gibbs gives to Tim McGee reinforces the brief, forceful conversation they'd shared downstairs. Gibbs trusts the younger man, but if he lets his emotions compel him to step one inch out of line he'll suffer for it.

There are to be no helicopters this time.

Gathered at the door, their strategy is simple. Michelle and Tony will go left, Ziva and Tim right and Gibbs up the middle. As with the third and final visit to Richards' office, Ziva makes quick work of the lock, picking it silently and moving out of the way.

Gibbs' flinging open the door startles the young black woman behind the desk, she hadn't touched the button to unlock the door. "May I he'll–" she gets no further when she sees the drawn guns and her piercing shriek splits the air.

There's a door to the left of the desk and though the element of surprise gone, Gibbs recaptures it by charging the door and kicking it open, leveling his gun at the single occupant. "Federal Agents – _don't move_!" DiNozzo, McGee and David are only an instant behind him while Lee remains outside to guard the terrified Receptionist.

His warning is an instant too late; the blonde woman, alerted by the scream, stands behind her desk, her gun aimed at him.

"Put it down," Gibbs commands. They can hear Lee's calm voice issuing a warning to the receptionist, counterpoint to the frantic responses outside and the tension in here.

None of the Agents will be distracted from the woman before them, the one with the gun. "I'm not telling you again," Gibbs tells her, "put it down."

"You're not going to shoot me. You're going to let me go. You'll have to release me, or kill me." She aims the gun carefully, right between his eyes.

"We're not going to shoot you. You're going to put the gun down."

"Make me."

x

Before Gibbs can answer McGee steps forward, arcing to his right, walking slowly, forcing the woman to divide her attention further as the angle of threat increases, Tim arching around to the side of the office. "They're not going to fire. You're going to drop your gun." His voice is cold, empty, drained of all emotion or pity. Confronting the one who hurt Shav under the guise of helping her, he feels no emotion, no mercy, nothing but cold emptiness where he remembers compassion and mercy had once resided. She's not going to trick or plea her way out of this. He puts his gun back in its holster, is glad he neglected to put his shield onto his belt.

"You see, I'm not like them," he tells her coldly, remembering the day he'd confronted Electro. Then he'd only been furious. Now…. "You see a shield on me? No. That's because they question my _sanity_." He keeps walking around to her, drifting closer through the wide arc. Every time she would turn the gun toward him, one of his partners moves, changes her target, forces her to keep aiming at the three of them.

"Not long ago, during a 'psychotic episode' that I don't even remember so I don't feel the least bit guilty about, I rammed a dagger into the chest of a fellow agent, all because I thought Siobhan O'Mallory was in danger."

He sees realization in her eyes.

"Yes, I'm Timothy McGee. You've heard of me." He moves closer. "You sent Siobhan to kill me, except it didn't _work_." His voice, his manner, is so cold his friends shiver. "Someone else tried to mess with Siobhan; you might know something about that." He stops next to her, speaking almost into her ear as she keeps the others covered, unable to move to confront him. "I caught the bastard. He tried to cut a deal. I threw him out of a helicopter."

He leans closer, his soft words cold in her ear, "Just _imagine _what I'm gonna do to _you_."

The gun slips from her fingers to clatter to the floor.

x

"Ziva," Gibbs orders, "check her for all the suicide tricks you've ever known, then be imaginative." As the Agents move in, Gibbs turns to McGee, "Well done."

"I recognized she's like you," Tim says. Gibbs' eyes climb dangerously. "I knew she'd see a lie, so I didn't tell any."


	2. Interrogation

Chapter Two  
Interrogation

Nurse Judy Tremont sits in her seat in the Interrogation Room, tense from the silence even more than her captivity. The woman blocking the door says nothing. She had brought her here from her cell in the basement ten minutes ago and the woman hadn't said a word. Ever since she had been arrested by this Government Agency, one she's barely heard of, none of her questions had been answered with more than a few words, the leader - Higgins - doing all the talking.

She'd been arrested the night before last and held without a lawyer. They said she was not arrested, but it feels like it to her. Through her own carelessness one of their agents had been murdered on her watch, now she's their prisoner and must answer for it. They'd given her a chance to make a call but she _has _no lawyer and, living alone, fearful of her future at work at the Hospital, she has no one to call who will reassure her.

She turns again to the Sphinx-like woman - Special Agent Susan Bourne - at the door, but before she can open her mouth the door opens and the same man who had arrested and interrogated her comes in. He's tall, too tall, and his jet black hair and black eyes give him a formidable appearance. "Good morning, Nurse Tremont."

"What's good about it?"

He shrugs as he sits down. "Good point. There's not a lot about today that's good."

"You were going to let me _go_. I gave you what you wanted. I described the doctor."

"Unfortunately, it's not enough. Your description was more of a comic book character than a real person."

"That's not my fault! I described him right; your man drew him exactly as he was. That's the way he looked."

Fred Higgins is not in the mood to debate that; rather, he opens the file folder before him. "I have here photographs of some forty men who best fit the description of the man you gave us, the supposed 'Doctor Strange'. I'd like you to look them over and see if there's anyone here you recognize."

"And if there isn't?"

"I'll have someone bring you a new set."

Judy feels her first distress-fueled burst of resistance. "You can't keep me here, I want to go home. If I'm not under arrest, then I want a lawyer and I want out of here."

"Unfortunately, it's not that easy. You see, Agent White was one of four operatives protecting a Marine General. Three of them were killed at Arlington during a funeral. I think you might have heard about that. There were quite a number of people killed, including the family of the soldier being buried and several mourners." The blood draining from her face is enough of an answer. "We think whoever did that also entered your SICU, waited until you were gone, then killed Agent White. You're the only witness we have."

"I know that, and I'm sorry."

"So does he."

"Does he what?"

"Know you're the only one who can identify him." Higgins wonders if her face can lose any more color. "You're not a prisoner, nor are you under arrest. You're under our protection, because if he can get to you he'll kill you just like he did White and the others."

x

"You're not lying." It doesn't sound like a question.

"What do you think?"

"I think … I think I'm having a nightmare."

"Believe me, Nurse Tremont, you are, but it _is _real." He points to the stack of photos between them. "You can help end it."

Defeated, she opens the folder, turning it around to see the first photograph. "He didn't have a scar." She tells him, turning it over. Higgins makes a note of it in his pad, along with the fact that Strange's eyes were bluer than those of number two...

x

After she has seen all forty, Tremont pages back to one particular photo. "This one is most like him."

"You're sure?"

She shrugs. "Not really, no, there's no moustache, he's grayer … I think. I didn't _really_ pay that close attention, he was too old for me, but this one is the closest one of them all."

"But you're not sure it's him?"

She stares at the picture. "No, it looks like him - kind of, but … I'm not sure."

Higgins doesn't let his eyes betray anything. In conformity with standard practice, not everyone in these pictures was a suspect. He had never said they were, simply that 'they best fit the description'. Just as an in-person line-up uses ringers, only twenty seven of the forty had records of any kind.

Unfortunately Tremont had identified the photo of one of those ringers, Supervisory Special Agent Robert DiMarco.

x

"All right, let's go over it again from the top," Higgins says, settling into the chair. "The night before last your relief was late, then this man came in…."

They go over every detail, moment by moment, everything she saw, everything she heard, everything each of them said and how they said it. Higgins picks apart every aspect for well over an hour before he finally admits to himself that he's drained this well dry - and obtained virtually nothing more than a string of negatives on the identification and a few more details on voice and accent, which he'll incorporate into the continuing search.

Gathering the photos together, he returns them to his file and starts for the door, determined to have his team select others that more closely match the details he'd gleaned in this session. Signaling the other woman to exit first, he closes the door.

x

In the hallway he addresses Susan Bourne, "take her back to Holding. Have someone bring her some food, then knock off for the day." It's long past their 0800 quitting time, now approaching noon. "I'm going home to bed, we'll try this again at Zero hundred." It has been a long night into day and the hope of normal hours to come is not bright.

As Bourne enters the Interrogation Room, Max Crawford and Sol Mitchner come out of Observation.

"Do you want us to pick up DiMarco?" Crawford inquires, not even bothering to hide a smirk. Higgins, finding not even gallows humor in the question, closes his eyes and counts to five.

"I am really starting to understand why Gibbs slaps people."

xx

As Higgins turns away and walks down the corridor, he passes the aforementioned Gibbs and DiNozzo just arriving, a handcuffed woman between them. "Two's getting a workout today," he comments, barely giving the woman a glance, "good thing I was done." It had been close timing indeed. "What about One?"

"It's occupied."

xxx

While DiNozzo secures Elizabeth McFadden into Interrogation Two, Gibbs decides he has some time while David and Lee compile a record on their prisoner who he intends to wait in the room alone for a while. He goes to the third floor, cutting down the corridor a short distance and entering the large room used by DiMarco and his team. He does not bother to knock and Susan Bourne, on her way out, must duck out of the way of the unexpectedly advancing door. "Sorry."

"I could use the Disability Leave," Bourne says with a smirk, cutting past him and continuing on her way. When the door closes Gibbs and DiMarco are alone.

"Your winning ways," DiMarco says dryly, "will ultimately win you many friends - in the hospitals." Seeing he's not going to get anywhere with this line, he returns to business. "What have you got?"

"Does the name Dr. Elizabeth McFadden ring any bells?"

The older ex-Marine thinks for a moment. "There's a sonorous peal off in the distance."

"Well let me bring it a bit closer. She's a Psychiatrist. You and your team investigated her two and a half years ago before okaying her for Naval referrals and treatment."

"Oh, yes; we were assigned to do about half a dozen background checks that year. The Navy wanted to expand its resources beyond those they have in uniform. After 9/11 things got really strained. Long tours of duty, generally more problems than the current resources could handle, forced the Navy to use private practitioners. They supplemented the fees to help with the difference." Military personnel receive free care; by going to a civilian practitioner there were some out-of-pocket expenses. "All of the reports were routine, they'd been checked out thoroughly by the AMA and other Professional Standards Reviewers before we even got the list, but we did thorough checks as though they hadn't. Why?"

"We have her down in Two; she's cut from the same cloth as Sam Richards."

This is enough to vaporize DiMarco's ease. He sits forward, intent. "The disks?"

"Reverend O'Mallory had been her patient; she tried to put a bullet through McGee's face."

"Holy Hell. Gibbs, I swear to you there was none of that when we checked her out. Back then, she was straight arrow."

"Who did the follow-up?" It hadn't been in her file, but in a normal, efficient world, there would be annual reviews of the fitness of the Navy's contractors, not that Richards had been caught. Gibbs has no faith in that normal, efficient world.

"Not us, but I'll damn well find out and get the word to you ay-sap, on _everyone _we checked out back then."

xxx

When Gibbs enters Interrogation Two he finds their prisoner arranged just as he had directed, her cuffed hands secured to a leg of the table. Considering the extent of post-hypnotic suggestions they've been dealing with, none of the agents have any trust that McFadden will not try to do herself in. The table isn't bolted to the floor, but any attempt to move it will be seen and quickly interrupted.

With DiNozzo and David watching from the Observation Room, where the interview will be recorded by the operator at their left, Gibbs sits down at the table before McFadden. "At this moment," he tells her, his quiet tones forcing her to listen, "Agents are going through every inch of your offices and we have a warrant in the works to tear your home apart. You can save time now and tell us who supplies you with your disks."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Gibbs is actually disappointed, not surprised but disappointed. "You're an intelligent woman – at least I hope you're an intelligent woman. You know we have O'Mallory, we're treating her to undo the damage you caused. We have the disk you gave her. If there are any others, and she kept them, we'll find them. Where did those disks come from? Save yourself some time."

"My time, Agent Gibbs, is worth $200 an hour."

"Mine," he assures her, "is worth so much more."

x

In the Observation Room, Tony feels he has to give that round to Gibbs. "I wonder how long it will take her to break."

"You are so sure she will break early. Me, I see a cold, hard snitch."

"You mean 'bitch'."

"Yes, that too. She obviously feels she has the psychological skills to match against Gibbs in a fair fight."

"My money's still on Gibbs, and who said this is going to be fair?"

"Maybe he should let me do it. I can get answers with a minimum of blood loss."

"I think if he really wanted to have her learn the meaning of pain, he'd send the Probie in."

The glare Ziva gives him is nearly fatal.

xx

"If you think sitting there _staring_ at me is going to get me to break you can forget it."

"I'm going into overtime in an hour. I have no plans for the next couple of days. Have you?"

xox

"You're wasting your time staring at me. I don't care if it _has_ been two hours, you're not going to break me. No matter how long you keep staring at me I have nothing to say to you."

xoox

"If you're not going to ask me any _questions_, take these things off and let me out of here."

"I asked you a question. I'm waiting for the answer. Who gives you the disks?"

"You won't get anything out of me, but could you at least let me get to a bathroom. I haven't had a chance in _hours_."

xooox

"Look, I've _had_ it! Stop _staring_ at me! I want my lawyer _now_! I want to get out of these damned cuffs and I want to use the _bathroom_!"

xoooox

"How much _longer_ is this going to go on? Will you stop _staring_ at me?

xooooox

This is _abuse_! Let me out of here. Get my lawyer in here or at least have someone escort me down the hall!"

xoooooox

"Please – I'm _begging_ you! I can't _stand_ it any longer. _Please_!"

"Where did you get the disks?"

xooooooox

"_**Goddammit - stop staring at me and let me pee**__!_"

"Where did you get the disks?"

xoooooooox

"_Please_ let me out of here! All day you're torturing me - let me out of here! I can't _stand_ this any longer! If I don't get to a bathroom _now_ I can't be responsible for what happens!

xooooooooox

"_**PLEASE**_!"

"Where did you get the disks?"

xoooooooooox

"FOR GOD'S SAKE THEY COME TO ME BY _FEDEX_!"

"From where?"

"I never _**know**_! They come from different addresses along with instructions on who gets which ones, and I get wire transfers to my account! _**PLEASE**_!"

"When is the last time you had a delivery?" He knows DiNozzo is already on the phone, relaying these details to the Squad Room.

"Two days ago. _PLEASE_!"

"How many people do you get disks for?"

"Oh my _GOD_!"

"How many people do you have in this scheme?"

xxx

Tim McGee, at 1330, is on his early afternoon break, staring through the large observation window into Interrogation One at the still body of the red haired woman who lies upon Abby's daybed. He's been here every free moment since returning from McFadden's this morning, each time returning to his work at the last possible second.

Siobhan sleeps under a light blue blanket, looking peaceful but he knows better. She may look peaceful, but inside he knows a battle is waging, a battle for her mind.

The bed had been set up in here when Abby had grown so busy with the growing mountain of evidence to be tested that she could no longer retain a quiet environment. Siobhan is sedated, the enhanced music fed in through speakers, a reverse of the normal operation. A technician monitors her slumber, her only unknown company other than McGee, and he has spent every break and meal time in this spot.

Tim stands at the window, Observation One shrouded in darkness. He can see her, but even if she were awake she couldn't see him through the one-way glass. He remains silent, not moving, but isn't surprised to see Gibbs' ghostly image superimposed over the blue draped woman.

"I keep telling myself," he tells that image, his voice sounding distant even to his own ears, "that if I had shared my cases with her she wouldn't have been victimized like this. She'd've seen what McFadden was going to do."

Despite her connection to NCIS, the Priest is not an Agent and Gibbs has always been aware of that distinction. He grants that "You could have shared Classified information about investigations with a civilian. She could have told you she was seeing a shrink."

McGee doesn't face him, he knows what his boss is saying. Neither of them was going to do anything other than they'd done.

"There are some lines of communication that just don't get opened," Gibbs says. Maybe they should, maybe they shouldn't. I don't know."

"It took Abby about twenty hours to break her own conditioning," Tim says softly. "She was working on herself, but she hadn't had the command to kill."

"She's in good hands. Abby's monitoring her progress from the lab." Gibbs can't make his voice reassuring. He doesn't deal in false assurances he can't guarantee or in hopes he can't grant. He looks at their translucent reflections, his eyes locking McGee's. "You've been haunting this room every free minute today." He doesn't need anyone to tell him this, and no one had. He knows the man who stands before him, staring through the window.

"She stood by me when I was sedated, when I wasn't myself." Tim doesn't remember that time, he has only his friends' word and his own faith. "It's the least I can–"

"Don't lie to her - or to yourself," Gibbs takes a step closer, his voice carrying only inches. "That conditioning made her pull your gun on you; you threw a suspect out of a helicopter because he was trying to hurt her. You drew a sword on DiNozzo because you thought _he _was trying to hurt her. Whether you were in your right mind or not, you 'stabbed' DiNozzo to save her."

"What are you saying?"

"I think you know."

Tim turns to him. "Wait a minute - are you trying to tell me I love her? I'm committed to Ziva!"

"I'm not trying to tell you anything, McGee." He looks about the room Tim has been haunting. "What are you trying to tell us?"

Gibbs starts out, but Tim has one more concern. "What about McFadden?" It's been hours, most of the morning and afternoon. "Did she break?"

"Oh, she broke, we learned a lot."

"How was it?"

Gibbs continues out. "Messy."

x

He is no more than five feet down the corridor, heading back toward I2 when the door behind him opens again. "Boss?"

He turns around. "What, McGee?"

"Did you get _every_thing? Why she did it?"

"We will. I get a break, she doesn't."

"I'll get it for you."

Gibbs regards the younger agent intently. Certainly McGee's motivated, but can he keep that motivation under control? He advances until they are only inches apart. "You break her, we can break this case. Step out of line and–"

"I'm not going to."

McGee wishes he could read the old Marine's mind, but his eyes are saying nothing. The moment lasts too long.

"Come on."

x

Elizabeth McFadden sits alone in the Interrogation Room, shaken. She'd revealed so much, had broken so humiliatingly, and the man hadn't laid a hand upon her. When he was satisfied he'd granted her plea of relief, but then she was brought back to this room and locked in again, hands chained to the leg of the table. For all she knows she's being held until the next time her body is going to humiliate her. It might take hours, it might take days. Her captors have proven they have no mercy. She can only wait for the next step in her torture.

It happens sooner than she had anticipated; the door beside her opens and her heart leaps into her chest. The man who enters is not the one who'd sat all day staring at her until her body had forced her to break in utter humiliation. This man is the one who'd taken her, the one O'Mallory had described in such detail, the one whose eyes she had looked into and had seen her own death.

x

He comes with a single file folder in his hand, closes the door firmly and locks it with a snap of his wrist on the bolt. The smile he presents to her is one of grim satisfaction, one she's seen on killers and psychopaths. She wonders which one he is and how O'Mallory could have been so completely fooled by his act. She'd seen a kind, caring man; McFadden sees the truth.

"I just came to tell you you're done," he announces.

This is not the last thing she'd expected him to say, it had never made the list. "What – what do you mean I'm 'done'?" She's apprehensive. That word had held utter finality – and satisfaction.

"You're moving out of here," he passes behind her, she has to swivel first one way, then the other, her hands cuffed to the table leg restricting her, in order to keep looking at him. He turns, retracing his steps, just enough so she must come about again, shifting to her left to keep him in sight. "I'm here to introduce you to your new home."

He slaps the folder down sharply upon the desk. It's topped with a clipped-on photo depicting a huge fenced compound. Numerous buildings surrounded by soldiers bearing assault rifles or restraining German Shepherds form a scene out of hell. Barracks are one thing, this is so clearly a prison that her spirit quails. "You've been declared an Enemy Combatant; that's your new home. Guantanamo Bay – 'Gitmo' for short. You leave in two hours."

He passes behind her again; she turns frantically, seeking him out. For a moment he's gone, she has to turn until the cuffs dig into her wrists in order to find him. She's heard of Guantanamo Bay – everyone has. It's the 'prison' no one ever leaves. Ever since the war began, she doesn't believe anyone has ever gotten out – at least while still breathing. "Wait, you _can't_! I'm a U.S. Citizen, you ca–!"

"You've no idea how many U.S. citizens wind up at Gitmo. Believe me, there are a lot of them. You'll fit in nicely." He moves on, she almost turns completely about before reversing herself, seeking him out again.

"You can't do this!"

"I already did. You should have thought of that before you hurt Shav. She trusted you – you tried to turn her into a killing machine. My consolation is that no one in the U.S. is ever going to see you again."

"I want a Lawyer!"

"Citizens get lawyers, Enemy Combatants do not. You're not even a Citizen, you're a nobody."

"How dare you?"

"You _were_ a U.S. Citizen, now you're not. Everything these days is stored in computers and I am a Level One Computer Expert. I've canceled your Citizenship. Your Social Security number has been deleted. Your driver's license, your voter registration, they've all been erased. You have no license or record of any kind. If anyone from the AMA ever looks, they'll have to say they never heard of you. Someone else leases your office now, and has for the past three years. You have no birth record, no school records, no work records. You have no credit cards, no bank, no political registry, no identity. You're a cipher, a non-entity, a nothing."

"You can't do that!"

"I did."

x

He goes to the door, unlocks and pulls it open. "Enjoy Gitmo. You're never coming back."

"WAIT!" He hesitates only a moment. "I have more – more I didn't give your partner! I know who was doing this and where they can be found!"

"I don't give a damn. This isn't business. They may care, I don't. I'm sending you to Gitmo because of what you did to Shav! This is _personal_." He starts out the door, her scream cuts past him.

"_Agent Gibbs_! I'll talk! Stop him – I'll talk! AGENT GIBBS, STOP HIM! I'll _talk_!"

It takes only seconds for Gibbs to make it from the Observation Room. He seems to appear in the doorway. "What is this?" he demands.

"Agent Gibbs, I'll talk! I'll tell you everything I know! Just stop him! _PlLEASE_!"

xxx

"Sir, I've been searching everywhere," Michelle Lee tells Gibbs when he enters the bullpen an hour later to receive the results of the search he'd ordered from Interrogation, having spent most of the day with McFadden while the others tracked down scores of leads. "I can find nothing of McGillicuddy, Crocetti or Morrison."

"What do you mean 'nothing'?" McFadden, babbling as quickly as she could, has already confirmed the connection. They're already enough of a mystery, though now much of it can be cleared up, provided they find the people they're looking for.

"Sir, I have the headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland, branches at false addresses all over the world but I can find no information at all about Jackson McGillicuddy, Antonio Crocetti _or_ Herbert Morrison. As best as I can determine, there are no such people. It seems to be just names chosen at random, I can't track anyone down. There are names, addresses; a website – so far as I can tell it is all garbage."

"Then who does run it?"

Seeing the deadly look in his eyes, she knows better than to say 'I don't know', turning back to her monitor. "I'll tell you ay-sap."

xxx

Answers come far too slowly for Alpha Shift, which will be on duty until midnight. Everybody is on double shifts; two of the four Beta Shift teams must start at 0800 to 2359, the other two have been working since 1600 until 0800 tomorrow. Headquarters, normally a busy place, now has agents both in the field and squeezing into places where they may find them and computer records are in heavy demand. There are many agents assigned to a multitude of duties. All the recent cases are being reevaluated based upon their potential connection to this overall threat.

There are too many cases that fall into that category. There may not be much legwork involved in these investigations, but demands are made upon all and the day wears heavily upon everyone. When Gibbs finally allows his team to start taking breaks from their computers it is nearly 1500 and DiNozzo is out of the bullpen almost before the echo dies. He is used to action, now most of his action comes in the form of keystrokes on his computer. He can't get out of Headquarters and off the Navy Yard quickly enough.

xxx

DiNozzo sits down with Edward Sheehan, one of the members of Patrick Gaine's Team, at a small wrought iron table, one of a half dozen set up outside the Emphasis Café. It's a mild early October afternoon and the double shifts make any opportunity to get away from Headquarters for an hour something of an obligation to the spirit.

"So tell me, whose bags under our eyes are heavier?" Sheehan, a large blond ex-football player, asks. Both men are on Alpha shift, the normal 0800 to 1600 now extends to 2359 and the time spent in going to and from home will quickly reach the point where it has to be reconsidered. DiNozzo is not quite ready to pull out a cot or seek space in the Bachelor's Quarters on the base, though some teams have already made provisions. If things keep up as they have been, he is going to seriously consider the option.

Looking at Sheehan's well worn clothing, he doesn't want to know how bad he looks. "Forget it. I've been picking apart Natasha Klein's life to the point I'm practically an expert on her. Go ahead, ask me any question."

"I'll pass. I heard some of what they did to McGee. It's a wonder he's on his feet."

"He's kind of motivated." DiNozzo doesn't want to let on just what motivates the man; it skirts too close to personal revenge for his tastes. He pauses instead to admire the blonde waitress who places two cups of coffee upon their table. "How goes the hunt for Adolphus?" he asks when the woman steps over to another table.

The elusive assassin known as the 'Iceman' had come back under scrutiny, as had John Carson and many others having even the remotest connection to suspicious international activities. They had come to NCIS' attention during the 'PDC/9 debacle', before the Army had pulled everyone off the case in the interest of National Security.

'National Security', DiNozzo thinks sourly; 'more like 'you pry - you die'.'

Anyone who has any connection to a Swiss Bank Account like the one funding Jack Carson and Ron Adolphus has come back under close scrutiny. DiNozzo had been appalled to find out how many there are.

"It's going." Sheehan admits. "The Army pulled a blanket over him and it's tricky when you can't allow our own Servicemen to know you're hunting one of their secret resources. I have to keep CID from finding out about my research when I'd much rather be asking them for help in cracking the case."

"No hits?" The Iceman has a particular style, primarily hit and stroll, a manner as unique as a fingerprint.

"He's keeping a low profile, which is odd, considering."

"Considering 25 G's a hit. Me, I'd be working around the clock."

"Me too." Sheehan takes a sip of his coffee. "Then again, we are. I guess the Army is keeping him on a short leash."

"Doesn't fit, does it? The Army having a hit man on retainer?"

"As Abby would say, it's got a load of hinkyness about it." He pauses, noticing he doesn't have DiNozzo's attention. He turns around, finding the one who does. "Nice."

"Thank God for warm weather and miniskirts." Washington is enjoying a brief gift of Indian Summer, and so are they.

"You don't make out too badly having Ziva and Michelle on your team," Sheehan reminds him.

"They're taken, but what about you with Maggie Calder. You ever –?"

"No way. Phil might be in Nevada this week, but you ever see him in the ring?"

"Ouch."

x

"Well, Jack Carson remains off the radar, if he's even alive." Sheehan tells his friend.

"Think they offed him?" DiNozzo asks tiredly, the cot seeming like a pleasant choice at this point, another twelve hours to go before he can hope for any rest.

"I don't know. What about Klein and Whitney?"

"They've got major rap sheets going back decades." DiNozzo admits, not looking forward to accumulating any more dirt. "I hear Whitney's ex-wife – ex-widow? – wasn't particularly sad to hear he wasn't ever coming back. The guy left everything to a Kathy Disher in Brooklyn. They're going to be in court for years over this."

"Nice guy. Disher got a rap sheet?"

"Yeah, Prostitution and Professional Submissive, though if the Will goes in her favor she could probably retire - or more likely open an Escort Service."

"How much are we talking about?"

"Over 52 grand."

Sheehan gives a low whistle. "I'm amazed these Swiss guys haven't tapped into it."

"I'm willing to bet they did." DiNozzo decides that when the audit of assets is finished the Ex and the girlfriend are both in for a surprise.

x

Any further speculation is cut short as a black car pulls up to the curb. "Time to quit loafing, Ed," Margaret Calder calls to him out the front passenger window, "we're heading over to Carson's place again."

"Hrmph, we've already swept it," the man says, standing up. The home had been a fantasy Armory; the walls lined with scores of outlandish weaponry ranging from Zulu zetkangs through Klingon bat'hleths.

"This time Shepherd wants us to use tweezers," Team Leader Patrick Gaine tells him as Calder reaches back to open the rear door.

"Well, time and tide…" Sheehan looks for the waitress, not seeing her.

"I'll get it," DiNozzo offers, standing and starting for the Café door. They had had little time for more than coffee. "You get the next one."

"Okay, thanks." Sheehan heads for the car, DiNozzo waving to the others before going into the Café, crossing the large room, his eyes taking a moment to adjust from the bright sunlight. When he can see again, what grabs his attention is the blonde waitress at the counter before him. She is not his waitress but he can dream...

He starts toward her, circling around a table with a middle aged couple just finishing their meal and reflexes take over as a bright flash of light has him dive for the floor.

The explosion shatters the bay window and glass door, shards of glass rocketing inward to bathe the assembled patrons as the concussion slams his body. He covers his head to avoid a thousand deadly missiles but does not avoid stabbing pain in each hand. The blast and a wave of searing heat knocks everyone and everything in the Café to the floor amidst piercing shrieks of pain. The concussion actually turns him over and two bodies slam heavily upon his. Climbing back to his feet from under the too still bodies, amidst the tinkling shower of glass and debris, he looks out through the shattered portal at the blazing car. Dozens of alarms fill the air, and become gradually clearer as his ears recover from the devastating noise and he can hear the roar of the inferno.

Even through the flames he can see there is almost nothing left of the burning chassis and frame of the car. He catches sight of a car door lying smashed against the wall to his left, resting on top of a woman's still body. He runs, leaping through the glassless door, knowing it is hopeless.

x

When he lands outside and sees the extent of the devastation, he is barely able to believe it. Everywhere for over thirty yards pedestrians lie upon the ground, their red covered bodies ranged outward from the explosion, and too many of the closest are not moving. The blazing fire in what had once been an NCIS car holds him back, the heat of the inferno searing his hands and face. A glance down at himself shows him his body is drenched in blood, he can feel no pain but he is covered in red.

There is glass upon the street as every window on both sides of the block has been blown apart. Behind him he can see the cracked stone and brick front of the building, testament to the force of the explosion that has taken out the entire front of the Café. The people who had been seated with him at the outdoor tables caught the worst of the explosion, driven toward the café wall. Blood flows from too many, too few move at all.

Flaming debris fills the street, so much of it things his mind will not allow him to identify, too much of it is soft and red but quickly charring. The building behind him and much of the sidewalk and street are splashed with red, too much of it too large and thick. Of Special Agents Edward Sheehan, Margaret Calder and Patrick Gaine he can see nothing – and far too much.


	3. Casualties of War

Chapter Three  
Casualties of War

A dozen ambulances surround DiNozzo, having responded to the scene to treat the multitude injured by fragments from the explosion of the car, everything from glass to metal shards or those burned by the initial fireball. Those who escaped the blast due to distance are covered by detritus of bodies not their own. Many are in shock, many hysterical, none have escaped injury. Those seated outside the Café with him are the most heavily wounded, he's heard a report of three dead.

As fast as he had been, he had escaped most of the glass fragments, though many had been stopped by his jacket. His hands and the unprotected back of his neck, however, had received numerous cuts. One of two score EMTs had treated him with tweezers, magnifying glass and gauze. He finishes just as Gibbs, David and Lee arrive.

For an instant, seeing his blood covered friend, Gibbs' heart had leapt into his throat, but he sees the gore is from without, not within. "Are you all right?"

The Paramedic moves on; there are too many casualties to delay with any one patient.

"A few cuts, nothing to worry about."

Seeing his bandaged neck and hands, Gibbs isn't convinced. "What happened?" After the succinct answer, he tells the younger man, "All right, get on to the hospital, have them check you out. Lee, you're driving."

"I told you it's not my blood."

"Not all of it, but theirs is mixed with yours."

"But –" Under the hard glare, DiNozzo knows anything more is only a waste of breath and he turns away, disgusted. "Come on, Probette, let's see how well you can play ambulance."

Three of his friends have just been blown to pieces and he now has to go away because his blood _might_ be infected. He is not interested in being nice.

x

By the time Jennifer Shepherd arrives, Gibbs and his team, Supervisory Special Agent Robert DiMarco, Kevin Lamb, Lisa DuBois and Janet Levy, Ducky and Palmer have each commenced their work. The Fire Department has extinguished the blaze and MPDC has established a perimeter about the smoldering debris which encompasses most of the street. Vehicular and pedestrian traffic has been stopped save for authorized personnel and all who had been on the street are being treated by now nine EMT units, hospital and volunteer ambulances, and the Investigation is well under way.

Casualties range for yards in all directions; the medical teams are stretched to their limits. The building that houses the Café shows seared cracks throughout its face but the worst damage is to the makeshift dining area in front. Red blood mars the white purity of several sheets covering still bodies and EMTs strive to help the many who were not killed but suffer nonetheless. Shepherd can see that the blood which struck the building extends as high as the third floor, too visible in the smooth glass of windows. By no means can it be from anyone caught at street level; this spattered blood can have only one source.

Ignoring anyone who would try to hold her back, Shepherd approaches the debris that had once been a black NCIS vehicle, now a burned and twisted shell, roof blasted away and visible as two twisted fragments, one up and one down the street. The knowledge that three of her friends, three valued agents, had been in that car had weighed heavily upon her through the short trip to the Café but the reality is worse than the knowledge. The car is a smoldering shell, blood and worse spatters walls, street, everything and the sickening odor of death wrenches her stomach. She can see portions of seated figures in the car, portions of three bodies, burned and smoldering meat and blackened and charred bones. She doesn't want to see them. She must see them.

The force of the explosion had ripped everything apart. Beyond the obliterated roof the doors are scattered; two behind her within what is left of the Café, two across the street. As she approaches she can see there's a hole in the middle of the car floor that shows her the scorched street and a burned out crater in the asphalt. There's too much red on the ground, on buildings, on the wounded for her not to be able to find her friends.

There's too much debris that's not steel, far too much and her mind does not want her to see it, not yet. She's at that stage where the mind pulls back from what the eyes see, not willing to acknowledge it. These aren't bodies, these aren't people, don't look, I'll protect you, you don't have to see if you just don't look. Compared to the nauseating horror, Ducky's former meat puzzles are tame. She had not seen – in person – the result of the bombing at Arlington, but these three people are also friends, as much as the agents lost in Arlington. She sees Lisa DuBois is holding in her gloved hand a charred piece of formerly gold metal, two and a half inches long. She does not want to know whose it was; the stricken expression on the woman's face is enough.

She closes her eyes, feels the gorge try to rise; she fights it and no one interferes until she wins.

When she can force her eyes open, Gibbs and DiMarco are there.

x

"What can you tell me?" she tries very hard to keep her voice short of a demand, but it's hard. She wants to scream and has to fight it down. It tastes worse than the vomit. She won't t ink of the bodies, won't think of running. She can't run from this. Tension is high, patience is short, grief still to be addressed, answers needed _now_.

"The bomb looks to have been in the cabin with them," DiMarco tells her, clearly trying to contain his distress and showing it all the more clearly for the effort. "The force is centered in the back seat or under the front, we'll know more in a bit but the damage is as much downward as up and out."

"The fuel tank rupture was secondary," he concludes, "it was the bomb." He's telling her that the concussion of the explosion did far more to the three agents than had the fire. In explosions that center around the gas tank and fuel lines, the bodies would be largely intact though probably burned beyond easy recognition. In an explosion such as this was, they will still have to look for most of the fragments of their friends.

x

"How did it get into–?" She shuts herself up. That is for the Investigation to determine, and it will.

"DiNozzo says the car was running idle for nearly a minute," Gibbs tells her. "They drove up, exchanged a few words, Sheehan got in, DiNozzo went inside to pay the tab and the car exploded."

It is common in car bombings - or at least it was - for the bomb to be wired to some source of electricity, usually the engine or to the ignition switch and sometimes to the cigarette lighter, but that's so old as to be a 'classic James Bond' maneuver. Now there are far more sophisticated and devious ways to engage a detonator. All will be checked.

"As of now, no vehicle leaves the garage without being thoroughly inspected."

"Begging your pardon, Director," DiMarco tells her definitely, "but this isn't going to happen again."

"No," she grants, trying not to sigh, "'barn door after the horse is out'. Whoever did this isn't going to repeat himself." She's about to give an order to the two men when the phone at her hip rings.

xxx

Special Agent Melanie Kelman, arriving at her Supervisor's apartment at precisely 1500, knocks briskly at the door and goes into alert as it swings inward. The door's not even latched. Drawing her Sig, Melanie scans the living room within, her eyes taking in everything, the stillness of the place completely wrong. An occupied, lived-in apartment has a definite feel, something the mind senses beyond the limitations of the five more commonly used senses. A vacant apartment feels different as well. This one has a third feel, one that is wrong and unnatural; occupied but not lived in.

No, there _is _something even more out of the ordinary. The woman's high heeled shoes are on the living room carpet, delineating a short trail toward the bedroom. It looks as though Martine has kicked them off on the way to bed, but the woman had returned home fourteen hours ago.

Holding back apprehension even as she holds up her gun, ready but cautious, Melanie feels her heart quickening and tries to control it, to silence her breathing, to keep a regular, quiet rhythm, to _listen_. Standing before the bedroom door, she turns the knob but uses the gun to push the door open, leveling the weapon upon the room - too late. She gets a face full of feted air, the stench of death held at bay from the living room and feels her heart seize in her chest as her worst fear after the murders of so many friends, held so carefully away from her, assaults her.

x

Martine Joswig lies on her back near the foot of her bed, her head nearer her writing desk beyond her. Yesterday's jacket hangs on the back of the chair, over it is her shoulder holster but her gun rests upon the desk. Martine's blouse lies upon the bed beside her. Her unlatched red bra is still on her body but lies askew above her left breast. The dried blood soaked into the carpet about her torso tells the grizzly story all too clearly.

Melanie's gun falls from her nerveless fingers.

Were Martine only wounded she would rush in, but Melanie knows the scene must be preserved so she cannot pass the doorway, not yet. Tugging her cell phone from the pocket of her pants, she fights to contain herself, to keep from giving in to her feelings, to focus on anything at all other than grief and anger that burns hotter by the second.

She opens the phone, pressing a combination by touch alone without taking her eyes off the body of her friend. There are three calls she must make, must hold herself together for.

The first is to Patrick Larsen, the second to Kenneth Templeton, and it feels as though reality has gone away, like she is speaking into a nightmare, standing in a Twilight Zone landscape that can have nothing to do with reality.

The third is to Director Shepherd. She barely hears the other woman's terse reply that she is on the scene of she never hears what. But if the Director is tense, she's only more so when Melanie gives her news. She closes the phone, unable to endure another moment.

She slips the phone back into the leather holder at her belt, unable to take her eyes off Martine's body. She doesn't want to believe the sight. Part of her can't deny it; part of her insists that it can't be true! She doesn't want to believe that Marti can be dead, but Melanie can't doubt the evidence of her own eyes.

She doesn't feel her knees buckle, doesn't feel herself fall to the floor at the doorway to her friend's bedroom. All she can feel is the emotion welling up out of control as she kneels outside the room, no longer able to contain the tears.

x

Jennifer Shepherd puts her phone away, certain her face shows her thoughts. "What is it, Director?" Robert DiMarco asks.

"Dear God," she whispers, "tell me this isn't happening!"

First William Davis, Michael Carver and Catherine Marcos are killed by a bomb, then Janet White is murdered in the hospital. Next Patrick Gaine, Edward Sheehan and Margaret Calder are blown up in their car, now "Martine Joswig has just been found in her apartment. She's been murdered."

She looks over the scene, giving the men a moment to absorb the new horror. "DiMarco, you and your team stay here. Gibbs, you and Ziva are with me, bring Ducky." There's little doubt of the cause of death here; she wants to know as quickly as possible why Joswig is also dead!

As her two lieutenants depart to issue necessary orders and organize the dual Investigations, Jennifer tries to erect her own shields over her feelings. She can't do it, she can't endure the fact that eight of her friends have just been murdered.

Gibbs and Ziva accompany Shepherd. He telephones Michelle, ordering her to return to Headquarters when she drops off DiNozzo. She and McGee are to identify and trace every employee of 'McGillicuddy, Crocetti and Morrison' who are anywhere in the tri-state area. Wherever the local address translates to, it is not on the lawn of the White House.

_Find_ it!


	4. Martine

Chapter Four  
Martine

When Shepherd, Gibbs, David and Mallard arrive at the apartment of Supervisory Special Agent Joswig, Palmer having been left behind to deal as best he can with the devastation at the Café, they find Patrick Larsen, Kenneth Templeton and Melanie Kelman already gathering evidence of their chief's murder. Walking into the outer room is like walking into rage. Tensions are high and fury a hair's breadth from exploding, it only needs one last excuse and all strive for professional detachment none of them can feel. When Gibbs looks into the bedroom at the still body of his first Probie, he slams a lid down upon his own emotions. Outwardly his face betrays nothing, but inside a terrible beast, chained and collared, tears at that chain and roars for vengeance!

The partially topless body of Martine Joswig lies upon her back at the foot of the bed, a colored outline having been inscribed into the carpet about her body, except where the blood has soaked into the carpet before drying. Kelman is using tweezers to remove something from the woman's body, placing it into a clear bag and labeling it. Larsen and Templeton examine the bedroom and living room respectively.

Ducky approaches the woman's body, trying to contain his own feelings so he may see her as a body to be examined, but this is the eighth friend in too few hours and he feels too close to his limit. Rather than his usual manner, this time he tries to see a dead body - but he only sees Martine.

There's a single wound on her left side, at heart level, but three exit wounds have been ripped through her flesh, one at the same height, one slightly lower and one at her waist. Blood has spattered and dried upon and into the coverings on the bed and the padded headboard six feet from the body.

x

Shepherd's first action is to get everybody but Ducky out of the bedroom and into the living room, split up into two groups. Ziva consults with Larsen and Gibbs pulls Templeton aside to learn all he knows. Shepherd speaks in quiet tones to Kelman, Gibbs close enough to hear even while speaking to Templeton.

Seeing Shepherd's carefully contained reactions, the fact that Joswig was their first partner weighs on Gibbs. It was originally Mike Franks, Gibbs, Joswig and Shepherd. Now one of the 'old guard' is retired - and one is dead.

But Joswig was also a 'finalist', along with Robert DiMarco, for the 'acting' position of Deputy Director of Headquarters Division, ultimately to be the SAIC, the Special Agent-in-Charge, of the Maine Division.

He wonders if she had ever known.

x

"I found three hairs in her right hand, one had a follicle," Templeton tells him.

"We'll get them to Abby, she can start looking for a match."

"She must have had the carpet cleaned fairly recently, the pile is high and fresh. I was able to get an excellent interference holography image of a right shoeprint. He must have stood in that one spot for some time. The left was not so good, it's smeared; he must have turned left but the right one is excellent – clear and sharp."

This tells Gibbs plenty more. A left-handed person is likely to turn left more often than right, but the gun was apparently held in the assailant's right hand. One or the other seems an attempt at obfuscation; it remains only to determine which.

x

"I dropped her off last night at 0112," Kelman tells Shepherd, her voice shaken and hushed, "I noticed the time on the dashboard just before she got out. She had some final reports to log before she could leave, so we had been late leaving Headquarters."

Shepherd is unsurprised at the detail; Kelman has a photographic memory, an excellent resource for a Senior Field Agent, and could tell her the number of seconds if they had been displayed. She's also a 'lightning calculator'; Shepherd would like her to calculate the number of minutes until they kill this bastard. "You drove her?"

"We live 19 blocks apart, so to save on gas we car pool, I drove yesterday, I was meeting her this afternoon so she could drive us to the Yard today. It gives us a chance to go over the fine points of any cases, lets us compare notes before we start the day." She glances at her watch; it is almost time for their shift to begin, but there will be no more such pleasant companionship before or after a day's work.

"Was the door locked when you arrived?"

"No, Ma'am, it wasn't even fully latched. When I knocked it opened from the pressure of the bolt on the frame. When I entered I could sense something was wrong, the apartment was occupied but not … lived in, if you take my meaning."

"I do. What did you do?"

"I looked about, you see there's nothing out of the ordinary other than her shoes." There are two high heeled shoes in a line from outer to bedroom doors, right further along than left. "The door was closed but I could sense something was wrong. Marti might have left her shoes behind, she was exhausted from our double shift, but even through the door I could smell something. I used my fingertips to turn the knob enough to push the door with my Sig - and found Marti on the floor. Her gun wasn't in her shoulder holster, it was on the desk, the holster was over her jacket hung from the back of her chair as you saw it."

"You checked the gun?" She doesn't ask if Kelman had touched it.

"Yes, Ma'am, it hasn't been fired."

"Was the safety on or off?"

"On."

"Did she usually have it drawn?" That would be unusual, so it has to be asked.

"No, Ma'am, I've always known her to keep it in the shoulder holster unless she was cleaning it, even when at Headquarters. She always used to say 'have a spot for everything and you'll never lose anything'."

"So this time she was undressing, _did _draw her weapon, but then left it on the table."

"I have no explanation, Ma'am."

xx

Ducky, however, has some answers as the seven agents gather in the room, the members of Joswig's team in the forefront with the Director, Gibbs and Ziva holding back near the door. Ducky perches on the balls of his feet beside the body, carefully distant from blood or other potential evidence. He looks up at his silent audience, the expressions on each of their faces eloquent of a vast array of emotions.

Near the door Gibbs is quiet and closed, and Ziva doesn't want to speculate on her own emotional state had she found her boss lying dead on his bedroom floor.

Ducky, unable to move or change the woman's body in any way yet, has settled for opening his handkerchief and spreading it discreetly over Martine's left breast, where the opened red bra had been raised above it. He'll report this to Abby, and leave her the handkerchief, but for the moment there are pictures enough.

"There is a single wound in her left side, as you can see," he tells the agents assembled by the door, "but _three_ rounds were fired at slightly differing angles. The barrel of the gun was pressed to her body. In such cases the hot gasses expelled upon emission of the explosion have no place to go except into the wound with the bullet. They cannot expand the barrel of the gun so they rip the flesh apart to form this stellate, or star-like, pattern. The blowback will also spray blood and particulate matter onto the gun and hand, or body, of the assailant. There are three distinct levels of ripping of flesh as well as stippling; the gun was held deeper as each layer of flesh was opened to it. Notice the pattern of blood to your right, how it extends only from _this_ point forward." There is no blood spatter on the right forward of the body, all toward the desk. "You will be looking for heavily bloodied clothing and a gun which, even if it has been cleaned, will contain traces of blood inside the barrel. I can find no defensive wounds on our late colleague's body. Apparently the killer was able to get close enough to her without putting her on alert."

"There's an exclusion field to the blood." Patrick Larson points out. The three distinct spatters on the bed cover only the right side from their position, the left side of the bed is clear.

"I'd say his body blocked some of the blood, as if he was holding her." Templeton agrees.

"I do believe you are right," Ducky points to Martine's arms. "Note that there is no damage to either arm, the blood upon them is from contact rather than wounds one might expect considering the placement of the exit wounds. I would say her arms were upraised when she was shot.

"Furthermore, the volume of blood on the carpet on either side of the body indicates she was alive for several moments. The blood continued to flow until her heart stopped."

Shepherd doesn't want to ask the next question, but considering the way Martine's body had been found: "Was there any indication she'd been - molested?" Peripherally she sees the reactions of Joswig's team, but she concentrates on Ducky's eyes. They are expressive enough - he doesn't like the thought any more than the others do.

"I shall have to let you know when I've done my autopsy, but I will say her underwear does not appear disturbed."

"How long ago did she die?"

"I estimate, based upon lividity, the progress of rigor mortis and the condition of the spattered blood, somewhere between thirteen and seventeen hours ago."

That is good enough to satisfy Shepherd; Kelman had dropped her off about fifteen hours ago. "Let me know as soon as you're ready with your report." She turns to the woman beside her.

"What about the bullets?"

"One out of the headboard, Director," Templeton reports, removing from the black evidence bag three small plastic containers, in each a small dented bullet rests upon a bed of cotton. Shepherd glances at the hole cut into the padded headboard after it had been photographed. The hole is only an indentation in the wood below. The second and third bullets aren't as dented as the first and have no blood upon them, at least none visible to the naked eye. Abby's analysis will show traces that remain upon the metal.

"It lost considerable momentum going through … through her" Templeton concludes. "The second one was inside the mattress." He tries to force his emotions down again, tries to concentrate on facts instead of feelings. He can't – the rage and grief are too close. As horrible as it is to lose a friend like this, she didn't die in battle – she was _murdered_, half naked in her bedroom! He recalls he had never seen Martine even carelessly attired, he'd never seen or even imagined her like this, half naked, bra undone and exposing her so …. He's grateful for Ducky's discretion.

"The bullet– it penetrated four inches deep into the mattress and seventeen along. The third one went through the lower mattress; I found it on the carpet under the bed."

"We'll see what Abby can turn up on them." She focuses her attention on Kelman. "As of now you are Team Leader, use every resource to bring this bastard in." Shepherd steps toward the bedroom door, unable to stand much more of death.

Melanie stares after her, wide eyed, and her scream startles everyone.

"I DON'T _BELIEVE YOU_!"

x

Shepherd turns, startled but holding onto her mask of composure against the woman's fury. She's not used to being screamed at by one of her agents. "Excuse me?"

"Marti's _DEAD_–" Kelman stabs the air toward the woman's body "and you just hand her _job_ away?"

Shepherd stalks back, approaching until she is an inch from the taller agent, her voice low and deadly. "Special Agent Kelman, you will _control_ yourself." Her voice slices through the younger woman like a sword. "Martine Joswig is not the only one we lost this afternoon; Special Agents Sheehan, Gaine and Calder have just been _blown up_ _in their car_!"

Kelman falls back a step as though she'd been slapped.

x

Shepherd had told none of them about the incident of just an hour before, seeing now how the news cuts through the three.

She stops, slamming a lid on her own emotions, her voice going flat, more deadly for its tonelessness. "You are Senior Field of this Team and we are at _War_ against an unknown enemy who has already killed _eight_ of us. I am giving you this Team because at this moment I have no one else who can take it and Joswig thought you could handle it. If you _can't_ then I'll merge yours with Agent Gibbs' and you will be under _his _command. If that's what you want, say so now."

Kelman meets the cautioning eyes of Templeton and Larsen; then her smoldering eyes lock on Shepherd's. "_No_, Ma'am," she says, tightly controlling her anger, "we will hunt this bastard - and we will bring you the _pieces_."

xx

When Ducky escorts the body of Martine Joswig out of her apartment for the final time, Gibbs and Ziva go with them. Gibbs could leave Ziva behind, or stay himself, but he decides it is best to leave. He knows, or feels he does, how his people would feel if it were he that was found on the floor of his own bedroom, and he knows Joswig's team has a commitment to finishing this case for themselves. Until he has a reason to decide otherwise, he'll leave them to it.

For a long time the trio works in silence, speaking only when there is something significant to say. For now, they're collecting evidence throughout the four rooms, trying to determine who had been in them and when, and they are dealing with ghosts.

Kenneth Templeton, haunted by the spirit of his friend who he sees over and over again out of the corner of his eye at unguarded moments, sets up three powerful laser pointers, one from the hole in the padded headboard, the other two directed by the holes in the mattress. The red beams converge at a spot beyond the foot of the bed, four feet from the floor and about a foot forward of where Marti's body had lain. He photographs the beams from several angles, trying unsuccessfully to isolate the details of the job from the fact that this is his friend and Team Leader whose murder he's investigating.

Finally, unable to endure the ghosts any longer, he goes into the kitchen to hunt down his _new _Team Leader.

x

He finds her checking cupboards, comparing what she finds with her memory of what should be there, frustrated to find nothing out of the ordinary.

Melanie glances at her partner when he enters the kitchen, venting her frustration. "There was someone living here, or was constantly here, I know it. But I can't find a damn _shred_ of evidence!"

This is a surprise. But... "Marti was always good with secrets. She kept ours but she could keep her own as well."

"She was my best friend, but there were still things she kept from me."

Ken will think of this later. Martine might have had something personal going on and it might even have something to do with her death, but ever since Shepherd's pronouncement something's been weighing on him, a thought that nags at him and won't let go until he says it. Kelman deserves to hear it. "Melanie, can we talk?"

x

Kelman can hear more in that question than the words and stops her search, but it takes her a long moment before she can nod. Templeton comes up to her, but she can see he's as uncomfortable as she is. Each can sense that what is going to be said will be equally unpleasant for both.

"Marti and I have been together for nine years, Pat for almost seven, you came to us three years ago fresh out of college and we three saw there was something unique about you. You've been a good agent, you're a lightning calculator and that's a valuable talent I'd never seen before, coupled with a memory so phenomenal you could tell me what color and print tie I was wearing the ninth day we were together –."

He stops, almost unwilling to continue, but he decides that if they are going to function together as a team there are things that need to be said. "But when Marti, after all these years, decided we needed a Senior Field and made you it, neither Pat or I said anything. We both trusted her judgment."

"Is this really the time for this?" Melanie asks tightly. She's barely controlling her emotions as it is, focusing on the hunt for her boss's killer. She does not need–

"I think it is. We've always been straight up with each other about the job and I'm not going to do things any different now that Marti – is no longer with us. I don't know what this team will look like next week - I don't even know if we'll all be alive to see it - but I wanted to be up front with you." He waits for her sharp nod. "I'm going to follow you every step of the way. You are my Team Leader and you have my support and respect. But I just wanted you to know that when this is over..."

Now that the moment is here, he finds he cannot say it.

Melanie considers his words, especially since he feels he has to bring them up at this time. She knows what he's saying, and particularly what he will not say. Since her sudden appointment as Senior Field Agent, it had become an old discussion between them. She decides he deserves an equally honest answer. "Ken, you know I didn't _want_ this. I _don't _want this and if it were in my power I'd dump it in your lap in a cold second. In fact, next time I talk to Shepherd that's what I'm going to do. But for now I'm stuck with it. All I can ask you to do … is to stick with _me_."

"Hey, don't get me wrong, you are Team Leader until Shepherd says you're not, and I'm with you. Question is, what are we going to do now?"

She recognizes there are much deeper questions than the words carry, but for now she answers only the words. "What are we going to do? I know what _I'm_ going to do."

"What?"

"I'm going to hunt that bastard down and I'm going to blow his _brain_ out!"

xx

Patrick Larsen opens the various drawers in the bedroom, feeling like an intruder. He's searching for some clue as to who might have been in this apartment with Marti; he finds instead a drawer filled with sheer bras and wispy panties. He gently touches one, thinking about his friend as he had never seen her until today. It is an image he wants to excise from his imagination. Anger, building for so long, batters at his control. He pushes it down again, and again.

It won't stay down. There's a wild, mad beast within him roaring for justice, screaming for revenge!

The door opens behind him, he doesn't move. For the moment the interruption distracts the beast. "Did you get it off your chest?" His words sound hollow even to himself.

"Yeah," Templeton's voice is rough.

"What'd she say?"

"We're going to play it as we always have, 'according to Hoyle'. Whatever happens, she's the boss until she isn't."

"She'll never be Marti."

Templeton doesn't answer. There's nothing to say.

"You know, pal, I once had a thought," Larson continues. He'd prefer to think of anything at all other than Marti lying dead, now on her way to Ducky's table, and closes the drawer of intimates, shutting them out of his mind. "NCIS looks to balance teams, but I once thought maybe … well, take a team like Romanski's or DiMarco's, male Leader and Senior, two women junior, at least technically. Ever picture us on one of those teams and the women with Marti and Melanie? I wonder what that would be like."

Templeton knows his friend well enough to know he'd been thinking no such thing, but he answers the misdirection anyway. "Doesn't bear thinking about, they're not going to do it." But he considers the question again, in light of all that's happened. "You're not thinking about jumping ship, are you, pal?"

Larsen shakes his head, "Not me, pal; I'm not going to be the one to break the team." He turns toward his friend, assuring him that "you and I are Partners – in _and_ out of the closet."

xxx

McGee looks back from his monitor when the ring of the elevator alerts him to an arrival. Ziva and Michelle are at their desks when Tony enters the bullpen, his clothes crisp. "Tony, how'd things go at the hospital?"

"Fine, kid." He looks past McGee. "Wish you'd stayed, Probette. I wouldn't have had to take a cab."

"I'm sorry. Agent Gibbs wanted me back right away." Michelle wonders why she has to remind him of a call taken while they were both on the way to the hospital.

"How are you?" Ziva asks, attempting to distract Tony's brewing anger.

"I'm okay," DiNozzo sits down, his voice brittle, and his hands search his desk for something to hold. "The doctors took some blood – mine this time. They'll call me if they find I just got AIDS or some kind of rare tropical disease no one's ever heard of. I picked up a new shirt, shoes, _suit_, chucked my old ones because there's only so much blood that comes out in the wash cycle – but not one of the kings horses or king's doctors are going to be able _to put Ed and Margaret and Pat back together again_!"

The black computer mouse flies off the desk under the hard impact of his fist.

xx

In Autopsy, Ducky and Jimmy stand on opposite sides of the naked body of an old friend. On Jimmy's side, Martine Joswig's body has a deep and torn hole where three bullets had entered and her flesh had erupted into a jagged hole with the force of hot gasses trapped three successive times against her flesh. On Ducky's side three large exit holes at upper chest, lower rib and midway between rib and hip mar her flesh.

Her body has been washed of excess blood, portions of her burned flesh have gone up to Abby's lab for initial tests, but they do not allow themselves to see that.

Neither man says anything. Nothing can be said. The expressions on their faces display their feelings far more deeply than words. Just so short a time ago - too short - they had been together at Arlington Cemetery, now…

She had been alive. So alive. Now…

Ducky picks up a scalpel from the tray beside him, but when he looks at the body before him he cannot see a corpse, a mystery to be solved and evidence to be gathered.

This is Martine.

He brings the scalpel to her right shoulder, but though he presses the sharp blade to her flesh, he cannot cut her.

They've worked together for fifteen years. Fifteen years of joy, of tears, of triumph, of tragedy. They've shared dinners, parties, celebrations; just this past year alone there was Jackson's new baby, Goodman's promotion, the Bar Mitzvah of …

"Oh, Martine," he says softly, looking to her closed eyes, "I am so sorry."

He knows she doesn't feel the pain of his cut.

He does.


	5. Torment

Chapter Five  
Torment

Gibbs strides into the Forensics Lab, holding tight rein on his emotions. He has spent the past hour reading what information is available on today's four murders of good friends and colleagues, three Team Leaders, five Field Agents, NCIS is suffering tragic losses, people feel the pain. Pains. Coming as they have so abusively close to the previous four, he had been seeking common threads. Those he found; answers still elude him. Six in explosions, one poisoned, one shot. Too many.

He finds the white coated woman sitting at her desk in her inner office rather than in the lab

"Abby, I want you to go through Gaine's car as soon as they bring it in," he directs as he enters. She flinches sharply, her shoulders hunched as though she were expecting an assault. There is melancholy music playing from the speaker of her computer, a dirge he had not heard since Kate Todd's death. "Look for anything that–"

He stops as she turns and looks up at him. Tears have drawn black lines of mascara down her cheeks. Misery that cannot be contained is etched onto her face and though she tries to speak nothing can escape her lips. She scrubs at her eyes and cheeks with a black handkerchief, smearing more mascara and the sight of her rips at the barrier he'd been holding so tightly to for so many hours. "Abby…."

"I can't believe it, Gibbs, I _can't_! Bill, Mike, Cat, then Jan; now Pat, Ed, Mags and Marti! It's a nightmare, Gibbs, a horrible _Nightmare_! Please, Gibbs, _please_ pinch me and wake me up!"

"I can't do that," he tells her regretfully.

She fights as hard as she can for control, her voice betraying her pain as she rubs her eyes again, unable to stop the tears. "I - I keep – keep seeing Cat, and _Mags_. We were going bowling tomorrow evening, 'Girls Night Out' with Cindi and Helena. When I heard you walk in my heart turned over because I thought you were going to tell me about Tim - or Tony - or Michelle - or …"

"No." He wishes he could say nothing is going to happen to any of them, but he can't.

She pulls herself up sharply. Giving in to that thought will only undo her. She forces herself to concentrate on work, and almost makes it.

She stands up, about to step out of the office into the lab. "I suppose you want something on the gun that killed Marti."

"Whatever you have." It hasn't been long since he sent the evidence down to her, he and the others had carried the first of it back to the Yard when they'd left Joswig's apartment.

She takes a step to lead him out, but stops, unable to enter the large room. She doesn't look back.

"I have three 35 caliber hollow point semi-jacketed bullets that probably _tore the Hell out of_ –" she stops, gasping sharply and then holding that breath. It is several seconds before she can continue. She tries to pull a lid over her emotions.

She can't.

"The first didn't hit any bones, it tore right through her but then imbedded into the headboard. The other two went into the mattresses so they're our best chances for getting a match if you get me the gun. All were fired point blank, Ducky says –" she turns away.

Gibbs doesn't press her. The silent shaking of her shoulders is enough.

It's harder this time to recover her composure. After a long moment she reaches out and turns off the music, takes a deep, lung bursting breath and holds it for several seconds, finally releasing it. She still can't face him.

"They were _definitely_ fired from the same gun, but as I said …" she never manages to repeat herself. "I'll check the car as soon as they bring it in," she tells him, struggling for control. "I'll let you know the in–" She cuts herself off sharply before her voice can shatter. He doesn't press her. "The instant I have something."

He does not answer, starts to step around her, to leave the office, to leave her alone when Abby turns. She tries to regain her control, only to have it crumple more. "Gibbs?"

"What?"

Tears slip down her cheeks and her voice trembles as she whispers: "Can I have a hug?"

He reaches out, she tries to seek comfort, solace, in his arms. She buries her face in his chest - and shatters.

xxx

"Near as I can tell," DiNozzo reports to Gibbs a few minutes later, "Pat Gaines kept his car in his garage. I've sent a team, but his wife and daughter are at her sister's place for the week, I don't know if she knows." He pretends he doesn't see the black smears that mar Gibbs' white shirt. "Jersey Field Office hasn't filed a report yet." This is always the hardest aspect of losing an agent, telling the family that a loved one isn't coming back. It's worse when it's an agent you know and you know those left behind. As with the Navy and Marines, NCIS has its own people, trained Counselors who have that detestable duty. Neither Gibbs nor DiNozzo want it.

"What about Calder and Sheehan?"

"Margaret Calder has a husband and two boys, ages ten and twelve. They're on their way in, the Director wants to see them as soon as they arrive, Jackson's waiting out at the gate. Ed Sheehan's a bachelor, parents are in Mississippi. I don't know yet if he was seeing anyone, Dave Hess is running down that path."

DiNozzo turns to his monitor, all but shutting Gibbs out. Grief and fury wage war within him, his face a terrible iron mask.

xxx

It's 1800 when Ziva David, anticipating a very late night, looks up to find Gibbs gone from his desk. She hadn't noticed him leave. She'd notice him leave, she always does, but this time her mind is on too many things. The other agents surrounding her are intent upon their own work. "Have you seen Gibbs?"

DiNozzo, across the bullpen, shakes his head.

"You know, I have been thinking. He has not said anything about Martine Joswig since we got back."

"What would he say?" DiNozzo asks, his voice tight. "She's dead. So are the others." He can't get the image of Edward Sheehan, seated opposite him at the outdoor café, out of his mind, nor can he erase the images of Patrick Gaines and Margaret Calder. And if he could, he knows they'd be replaced by Janet White, bound in white like a mummy in ICU, or that image of Arlington from the helicopter, white headstones surrounding white sheets surrounding a crater that would've been a grave.

"Yes, I know that, Tony." Why must he be so male? "I mean Gibbs knows her – has known her – for fifteen years; longer than any of the others. She was on his first team, he trained her–"

"Gibbs doesn't do the grief thing. He's more the hand tool kind of guy." It's all he can do to fight his own grief. One instant Gaines and Calder and Sheehan had been alive, the next–

x

Ziva, knowing her partner's mental turmoil, knows he means the man will channel a lot of his feelings into his work of building his seemingly endless fleet of boats. He will close himself off rather than opening himself to expressions of feelings. Still…

"Sometimes I wish he would talk about it."

"To who?"

"To _us_!"

"Never happen." She starts to protest, he cuts her off. "Gibbs isn't our friend, he's our boss."

"He _is_ our –!"

"Ziva, I don't know how the Mossad does it and at the moment I don't _care_, but here we have ways of doing things. Gibbs is our boss; he loses his effectiveness if he becomes our friend. Gibbs can let his hair down – or could if he had much – with the other SSAs and right now we're way too short on them and getting shorter, with Shepherd, with Ducky. He can't with us and that's the way it has to stay."

"But–"

"_Ziva, let it go, will you_?" The words come through clenched teeth, and she recognizes she's gone as far as she can. DiNozzo is as likely to see her viewpoint as she is to see his.

She gets up, feeling the need for something to do, especially if she must work for at least another six hours. "I am going on a break. If you need me, I shall be in the gym."

No one is up to answering her.

x

Passing the elevator, preferring to take the stairs at the end of the hall to the lower level, she pushes the door and is surprised to encounter Gibbs on the landing, his back to the wall. "Gibbs?"

He turns, pushes off the wall and rubs his face. "Tired eyes."

"Of course, sir." She will notice nothing more, not even his black smeared shirt.

"What about the bomb?"

"The car was towed into the garage a half hour ago. Abby is in the garage with a Forensics Team. She said she will call when she has something."

He opens the door, leaves the stairwell and Ziva descends the stairs.

xx

"Boss," DiNozzo calls, putting down his phone as he sees Gibbs approaching from the stairs, "that was Abby; she wants you to meet her in the garage."

xxx

Ziva enters the gym, heading for the women's locker room and the showers beyond, her mind fixed on finding something she can assault. She begins unbuttoning her blouse even before going through the door when she hears a loud shriek from within the room, followed immediately by a loud rhythmic pounding of metal. Thoughts of agents in danger fill her mind as she pushes the door and runs in; ready to do deadly battle with whomever she sees. Following the loud pounding and screams, she rounds the corner of one tall row of green lockers and comes up short, seeing a woman with light brown hair pummeling the closed doors of two lockers, screaming in insensate fury.

As she watches, Melanie Kelman gradually wears down and stops hitting the metal doors, slipping to her knees with a wail of heartfelt grief.

Stepping to her locker a few yards to her right, Ziva unlocks it, removes from the upper shelf a roll of gauze and another of tape and returns to the sobbing woman.

Melanie is surprised to see her but Ziva says nothing, helps her up to sit on the bench that runs the length of the aisle and takes her right hand. The knuckles of both hands drip blood, the flow falling onto her pants. Ziva keeps her silence, using the gauze to wrap layer upon layer about Melanie's hand, stopping the flow. She then tears off an end, closing Melanie's hand over it to hold it in place while she starts on her left hand. Ziva is content to say nothing; it is the crying woman sitting before her who needs to speak.

It's not until Ziva has taped the gauze on both hands that Melanie recovers enough to say anything. "I came down here," she sighs, "to blow off some steam before I see Ducky, to get his report." She looks up at the severely dented lockers. "I guess I didn't make it."

"Whose are–?"

"Mine," she looks at the left one, then at the right, "Alison Bresney."

"She is a butch anyway."

Melanie almost manages to laugh, knowing what Ziva had intended to say. She will repair the damage. Temporary insanity is no excuse for damaging someone else's property, regardless of personalities. "Next time, I'd hold out until I get to the bag." Six layers of gauze have not contained the blood which spots the white material. "Ziva, could I ask you something?" She waits until the woman nods. "Have you ever lost someone close to you? To violence, I mean?"

"Do a sister and brother count?"

Melanie nods sadly. "Ever want to _kill_ the bastards that did it?"

x

"Tali was killed by a suicide bomber." She hesitates. There is an official story but Melanie doesn't deserve the lie. "I killed my brother."

"_Shit_," Melanie whispers, having thought no one could feel worse than she does at this moment. But then the anger is upon her again; she looks up at the dark woman, her rage so deep her voice comes through clenched teeth. "I want to _kill _him," she declares, clenching her fists, ignoring the pain as the gauze pulls against her bleeding knuckles. "I want to _crush_ the life out of him! I want to take him, _tear_ him to _pieces_ and have him _know_ this is for Marti!"

Ziva knows such anger. She leans in closer, hoping her words are heard. "I have killed for revenge," she says softly.

"Does it help? Help the pain? Help the anger?"

"No. Nothing does. The hatred doesn't go away. Even when you kill the ones who have hurt you, the hate remains." She sits down beside the grieving woman. "But there are times I think that it has made the ones I have killed for to avenge… feel very sad."

xxx

The garage, which normally smells of gasoline and oil is now suffused with the stench of smoke and burned flesh and other things less desirable to contemplate. Abby, wearing an orange coverall with NCIS prominently stenciled in white on the back, wears a gas mask to protect her from the worst of the stench. Gibbs immediately seeks out another hanging on a hook on the wall and puts it on. "What did you find, Abby?"

She turns around, displaying a small object in her gloved hand. It's metal, blackened and barely identifiable. "I found the timer." Her voice is as distorted as his is.

"Timer, not a detonator?" He looks at the shape in her hand. It only confirms what he had believed.

"It was plugged into the detonator, which was under the front seat. I found it lodged in what was left of the trunk. Basically it's a glorified countdown device wired into the ignition. Turn on the ignition, the timer starts; when it reaches zero, blam!"

"Any idea how long it was set for?" Could Gaines and his team have reached their destination and been out of the car in time? He doesn't ask that aloud. Some thoughts should not be considered.

"I have to analyze it, but I doubt it. My guess, that bastard set it for just a few minutes after the car was started. It was just Tony's luck he was there too when it blew."

Gibbs turns and walks out, not trusting himself to reply.

xxx

An hour later, when Ducky hears the door behind him slide open, he draws down the upper portion of Joswig's flesh from her face and reaches for the folded blue sheet presently draped as high as the hips of the naked woman, draws it up past her bare shoulders. It is one thing to have to look upon the corpse of a victim of violence, whether you know her name or not, quite another when you actually know _her_. The look he exchanges with his Assistant says all his words would.

He turns about to find Gibbs, Melanie Kelman, Kenneth Templeton and Patrick Larsen.

"What have you got, Duck?" Gibbs asks immediately, trying to keep focus on the facts, the investigation, not allowing anyone to focus on the fact that this is a friend lying upon the cold table. She had been his first Probie when they both worked under Mike Franks and he can only infer what she meant to her team.

Ducky, keeping his own thoughts focused only on facts, leads them to the lighted x-ray panel on the wall, noting that only Gibbs and Kelman join him. Templeton and Larsen remain beside the body of their Team Leader, whatever thoughts they have left to privacy. Jimmy takes a few steps back, leaving them in solitude. Gibbs keeps his focus strictly on the job, not allowing himself to think about his friend, lest even his control break. Kelman joins him at the lighted panel because, as Team Leader pro tem, she _has_ to. The others can hear, they will say something if there's something than can be said.

As Ducky points to the array of white and dark photographic sheets, interpreting each in turn in strict detail, he doesn't miss the layers of gauze wrapped about the knuckles of each of Kelman's hands, nor the spots of blood that have seeped through. He'll offer her medical help when forensics is finished.

The x-ray sheets show different angles of Martine Joswig's torso, from waist to shoulders. "There were three bullets, all three entered in the same spot, between the third and fourth ribs on her left side. There was charring inside the wound from both the hot gasses and burned powder, the unburned powder was 'tattooed' into her flesh. Since the expanding gasses had no place to go except into her, the flesh was torn outward in the star shaped or stellate pattern I explained earlier.

"The first bullet penetrated her left lung and nicked the lowermost portion of the right ventricle of her heart before cutting through her right lung. That is the one that penetrated the headboard and was definitely the fatal wound, though she could have lived for as much as a minute even with these catastrophic wounds. I found blood filling the pericardium as well as much of the surrounding tissue, which indicates her heart beat for at least a short period after the bullet struck it.

"The second bullet tore through her left lung in a downward angle, passing under her heart to penetrate her diaphragm, passing through her liver to also exit on the right side. I would say she was starting to fall at this time. The muzzle of the gun was still pressed into her, quite probably even entering her body through the torn flesh. I found burns deeper in her body and more of the tearing I indicated that corroborate this.

"The third bullet penetrated her stomach and lower liver to exit at her waist just above her hip. You'll recall there was no injury to either arm; I traced the slightly irregular path of the bullets, indicating her arms were raised when she had been shot."

"What kind of bullets?" He already knows the answer. This is for Kelman's team.

".35, I sent them to Abby for analysis."

This caliber is definitely overkill for such close range murder. "What more can you tell us?"

Ducky hesitates. If it were just Gibbs he would speak freely, but he is reluctant to do so before Melanie. "Would you excuse us, my dear?" he asks softly.

"No."

Ducky looks at Gibbs in silent appeal, Gibbs shakes his head. Ducky hasn't adjusted to Kelman being Team Leader, he doubts _she_ has. No matter how hard or indelicate whatever Ducky has to say may be, Kelman needs to hear it.

"I believe I can say with certainty that Agent Joswig knew her killer." Gibbs notes the distancing effort. He cannot indulge in that himself. "Because her death was so sudden, there were measurable changes in her bodily chemistry. For instance, Abby found elevated levels of …" he really does not want to discuss an 'indelicate' subject with the lady, but there is hardly a choice. Though she is a friend of the victim, she's also the Team Leader in the Investigation into her predecessor's murder, "well, not to put too fine a point on it, there was definite evidence of sexual arousal." He is far too seasoned to wither under the woman's glare.

"I can also tell you that her assailant was taller than she was. The paths of the bullets through the muscles in her body are consistent with her arms being upraised and held forward, as though around someone's neck. I took samples of DNA from her lips as well as the usual blood samples for Abby to analyze..."

xxx

"I'm running the DNA even as we speak." Abby assures Gibbs, DiNozzo and the three surviving members of Joswig's team. Gibbs had directed DiNozzo to check up on Abby before he brought Joswig's– no, _Kelman's_ team down. He's pleased to see the Scientist has recovered some of her poise in the time since he had been there last, but she's still subdued, maudlin. The murders of eight friends have taken a heavy toll on everyone, and will for some time to come.

"There's too little DNA in the samples I got, so I'm at the unraveling stage now, then I'll be replicating the samples." For once she doesn't assault her listeners with a barrage of technospeak, but neither can she raise her customary élan. "When I get a sufficient amount, I'll match it, but against so many people it'll be hours, maybe days before we get anything.

"The shoe impression Ken raised was perfect, I got a full set of prints from the living room and they matched the set in the bedroom. The interference holograph produced as sharp an image as you could ever hope for."

"That's good."

"No, Gibbs, that's _bad_. The shoeprint impression was perfect, like right out of the box perfect, I'm not _supposed _to get an image this perfect. Look at your shoes, you'll find wear patterns, scuffs, maybe cracks, other imperfections, you'll find small objects picked up in the tread, trace elements from everywhere you step, everything you can think of.

"These look like he just bought these, put them on right out of the box, he killed Marti and then switched them off again. Those traces start and stop in the outer hallway."

"He knew what tests you were going to run. What about the hairs?"

"Now there I hit paydirt. She must have pulled them out while they were … well … and one of them had a follicle. I'm prepping it for DNA testing."

"How long?"

"Come back tomorrow."

"Too long, I need this today."

"Then you'll have to talk to Mother O'Mallory, she has it in with the Man Upstairs. Until then, _tomorrow_." Before he can think of stalking away "I do have a consolation prize, however; I had better luck with her bra." She leads them over to her table, upon which the red garment rests sealed in a clear Evidence bag. "I got a sample off the back; he must have unhooked it while they were making out. Sorry." She caught the looks on the faces of Joswig's team. "Anyway, if both sets match each other, that'll go a long way, but I still have to identify them. We're talking tomorrow morning at _best_.

"On the outside of the cups I found microscopic cotton fibers as well as rayon and nylon, I'm running them now, but–" and here she brightens almost back to her luminous self, "the piece d'resistance was the fingerprints."

"Fingerprints?" Larsen asks.

"Fingerprints. I found some on her bra, but plenty in her apartment. She tried to clean up. Some places were wiped clean, I heard, but you can't get everything and what was left cover that apartment like a _blanket_. The samples you brought back were matches even at a quick glance, and you brought back not only full sets to match but also good handprints as well.

"I can tell you that you're not just looking for a good friend, you're looking for a _very_ good friend."

x

"Was Joswig seeing or living with anybody?" Gibbs asks generally.

"No." Templeton and Larsen both agree. They had found no evidence at all of that.

"Yes," Kelman counters. The look Gibbs gives the three is eloquent enough.

"I guess it's 'yes'." Larsen admits.

"Marti was a very private person, as I'm sure you know," Templeton explains, though Gibbs hardly needs any elucidation. "She was generally open but if she didn't want you to know about something she considered private, you did _not_ ask."

"How about you, Kelman? Did she ever open up?"

"Never. She knew if she even mentioned anyone, even parenthetically, I would never forget. But I had my suspicions. We used to socialize off duty. Eight months nine days ago she stopped inviting me up; then eleven days ago she finally invited me again. When I was there I found nothing out of place, no indication of anything out of the ordinary."

"You'd remember?" Tony asks.

"Agent DiNozzo, I'd remember if a lamp was moved three inches." The two men on her team nod in confirmation and even Gibbs has personal experience of that from the Case of the Perfect Bride.

"In nearly eight months her apartment had no changes?"

"Looking back on it now, it was almost as if she were testing the extent of her restoration. If I didn't notice then there was nothing _to_ notice."

"Well, we're going to have to find out who this mystery companion is, because someone got close enough to her to kill her."

"Gibbs?" Abby snatches everyone's attention, "he had to have gotten a lot closer to her than that."

Something in her tone makes him not want to ask. "What do you mean?"

"I _told_ you you were looking for a very good friend. Some of the tests I took, the results were a lot easier than DNA fingerprinting. Blood and urine analyses confirm it.

"Marti was pregnant."


	6. Shattered

Chapter Six  
Shattered

Once Ducky is alerted about what to look for, confirming Abby's report takes only a few minutes. Fortunately, since it can be done via visual intercom from Forensics to Autopsy, the agents have little time to wait. The answer comes back shortly. "I'm afraid Abby is correct, Jethro," Ducky says, his image on the small screen conveying his regret, "Special Agent Joswig was indeed pregnant."

"How long?"

"Oh, only two to almost three weeks, certainly no more. The visible differences are only in the structure of the womb, the zygote itself is not visible. Only the presence of a Bilaminar disk, that spot where the zygote, eventually the fetus, attaches to the uterine wall, is indicative of pregnancy."

"Do you suppose she knew?"

"I shall have to get back to you on that one. I will be able to determine the extent of her menstrual cycle; I've only really begun the autopsy." He doesn't point out that there are seven other agents before her, six of whom having been victims of explosions, the latter three having suffered extreme dismemberment as well as complete desiccation and charring in the fire. He and Jimmy will be many days putting a conclusion to these nightmares.

"Answers when you can, Duck." The physician's nod is grim. Gibbs turns off the visiphone and turns to Kelman - the men hadn't even known Joswig was seeing anyone. "Did she know?"

"No." There is no doubt, no hesitation. "Marti and I told each other everything – almost everything. She didn't want me to know she was seeing someone, but there is no way she could have kept it secret if she knew she was pregnant."

"Why?" She had kept one secret very well.

"Marti didn't believe in having a baby without being married. If she'd known she would have made one of two choices: get married or abort it. Either way, we would talk."

"Which would she do first?" He wishes now, more than ever, that he had kept in better touch with her. They'd been teammates, Franks, Shepherd, Joswig and he; they worked in the same building, yet even short distances and differing shifts still seemed to pull the old team apart. One had retired to Mexico, one left Fieldwork to become Director, one became a Supervisor with a team of her own and one …

"She'd try for marriage first. She didn't like abortion. She was on the pill and protected herself, believed in safe sex, condoms. I guess … I guess she slipped."

"Abby, can you do one of those DNA thingies; find out who the father is?"

Abby looks about her full lab. It is late evening and she is working on tests of eight murders already. "I'll put it on my plate."

She wonders, however, where she's going to put the plate.

xxx

"McGee, Lee, what do you have on McGillicuddy and company?" Gibbs question is just short of a demand as he and DiNozzo return to the Squad Room. Since finding out about Joswig's pregnancy, he's in an especially foul mood.

"Not a lot, boss," McGee confesses, his voice strained and his movements slow and careful. Gibbs can see the effect of long hours and declining pain killers in the man's manner. He hasn't had enough time to recover from the injuries inflicted upon him during his capture and interrogation by enemy agents and Gibbs - NCIS - can't spare him. "Despite the initial trace in Florida for an alleged 75th Anniversary Celebration, they have such a low profile I'm starting to think they are more of a rumor than an actual company."

"Rumor, McGee? _They've killed eight of our Agents_ and you call them a -!"

"Sir, if I may?" Lee interjects, continuing without even waiting to find out if she may or not. "The tax number they gave to the hotel records for that event is false, it had never been assigned. But since all payments on the contract were made on time there was no need for the hotel to do more than the most cursory contacts via phone and fax. The number provided turns out to be a disposable cell phone. The fax was a 'Mailboxes Etcetera' service outlet. The NCIS Field Office in Florida is looking into the matter but the trail is already three years stale."

"I've consulted the IRS," McGee picks up the tale, "but I have to wait on business hours. Since the best way to get attention from the government is to operate a business and not file tax returns, I'm thinking this would be the best way to get a lead … but I have to wait."

"And while you're _waiting_, what are you doing?"

"Checking Real Estate records, which only confirm what we already know. The physical locations of McGillicuddy, Crocetti and Morrison are all false; there aren't any buildings where the records allege the offices to be. Though their address in Washington sets them on the White House lawn, the PO box is a 'Mailboxes Etcetera' outlet on 21st NW. Apparently they stick to what works - but while it's a 24 hour outlet there's no record of them actually _getting_ any mail. They apparently receive the usual junk mail everyone seems to be inflicted with, the box is emptied every few days, but that's all."

"Okay," he looks at the clock, aggravated it is still only late evening. "Tomorrow I want someone sitting on that box. Pin a tail on whoever checks it."

"Right, boss." McGee reaches for his phone, ready to call Dispatch, wondering who is left to assign to this task.

"Gibbs," Ziva calls. When he turns, the woman's expression is one of concern and secrecy. "May I speak with you a moment?"

He nods sharply, leading her out of the bullpen.

xxx

Fred Higgins waits at the table in Interrogation Two, several files open before him when the door opens and Susan Bourne escorts Nurse Judy Tremont into the room. The woman is shaken, pale and gaunt, unable to restrain the tears that trickle down her cheeks. Higgins doesn't believe she's had any more sleep these past few days than he has. By the time Bourne has assisted Tremont to sit down, the woman's composure is shattered.

"Please let me go!" she sobs, "I've told you everything I know! You can't keep me locked up here, I didn't kill your friend - I tried to _save_ her! Please let me go!"

Looking at the broken woman, Higgins believes her. Though he'd explained she's here for her own protection, she seems to have 'forgotten' that point. It's been washed away in her own desperation to get out. She can't leave; there is no way they are going to be able to let her out of protective custody, but in her present condition he doubts he can get any identification out of her at all. At this point she'll say anything, identify anyone, just to get out.

"All right, Nurse Tremont," he says, closing the file folder, "you're free to go."

x

The woman is so shattered that she doesn't understand. It takes several long moments for her to comprehend what she's been told. "What?" she asks through broken sobs, "I can go?" She clearly doesn't take it in.

"Yes. We have you here for your protection, but we can't keep you against your will. You're free to go whenever you want."

"I'm free?"

"Yes. Special Agent Bourne will take you home."

Misery changes to confused gratitude, yet she's so broken that she needs the other agent's help in getting up, thanking her captor profusely for his mercy. She needs help getting to the door.

"Nurse Tremont?"

"Yes?" She turns back, as vastly happy as she had been miserable. He allows his feelings to show through on his face, and then some, focusing on his grief so she may read it easily.

"Janet White was a very good friend and I am going to miss her terribly. We knew each other for so long, were so close..." He gives her a moment to absorb this. "Before you go, would you please just look at one last set of pictures? Please?"

Tremont looks at the woman beside her, seeing that same appeal upon her face. It takes a long moment, but she does sit back down. "Let's see them."

xxx

"_What the hell is that doing up there_?" Gibbs demands as he walks into the Squad Room at 2045, after granting Ziva's request to bring Tim McGee back to his home. The man should still be in the hospital, recovering from the injuries inflicted on him during his kidnap and torturous interrogations by Natasha Klein and her gang.

They had used beatings and torture with a cattle prod to compel him to give up the secret of the Delphi Code. His body is still a map of bruises and crisscrossing burned flesh that will take weeks to heal, but in the present emergency he cannot be spared. There is, however, an upper limit to how far anyone can press themselves, and Gibbs has seen that McGee has passed that limit.

But now, returning to the bullpen where DiNozzo and Lee still labor, he's outraged to see a detailed picture of the half naked body of Martine Joswig displayed upon the large plasma screen, a large splotch of blood dried and soaked into the carpet on either side of her torso.

The bullets had entered at heart height under her left arm, had exploded out her right side in three places, side, waist and above her hip.

She lies upon her back, her red bra raised on one side though Ducky had discreetly covered her bared left breast with his unfolded handkerchief. Gibbs knows there are other photos, taken before his team arrived with Ducky, that are far more detailed. If anything, DiNozzo's choice had been discreet. The image is indiscreetly visible, however, to anyone in the Squad Room with the angle to view it.

DiNozzo stands directly in front of it, staring intently. But before Gibbs can get in reach to give him a particularly resounding slap to the back of his head the Senior Field Agent says "Boss, why would she have her gun out for someone she knew?"

Gibbs aborts the strike, looking instead at the picture. The reality had already been seared into his memory; he doesn't care to have a reminder.

"How long have you known Joswig?" DiNozzo continues.

"She joined NIS under Mike Franks nearly fifteen years ago, she was _my_ first Probie." He looks at the screen closely, unwillingly memorizing every detail of her death.

"Larsen said she kept her weapon in the shoulder holster or the belt holster 24/7, only took it out to clean it or on the range, or when she had to use it. But now it's on the desk beyond her and the holster's draped over her jacket on the chair back."

"She was surprised," Gibbs concludes a few moments later. "She drew the gun to use it, but changed her mind."

"More than changed her mind, she set it down and didn't put it away, took a couple of steps away from it and she started making out with the guy. But if Kelman dropped her off and she was half undressed before leaving the desk and chair, then was someone in the apartment already?"

"Someone she trusted, someone with a key."

"Someone she _really_ trusted. How many people did she trust that much?"

"She trusted someone, she was pregnant."

DiNozzo might have answered, but some things are just too horrible to contemplate.

"Someone saw someone coming and going. _On it, Boss_!"

xxx

"This one," Tremont says definitely in Interrogation Room Two, separating the large picture from the others on the table.

"You're sure?" Higgins presses. She'd pulled the same picture earlier. If he's going to let her go, at least into another form of protected 'confinement', for now he needs her continued, sympathetic cooperation.

"Well, like I said before he doesn't have a moustache, his hair is not grey at the temples, but there's no other picture that looks as much like him as this one does."

Higgins takes the 8 by 10 color picture, studying it. Once before, Tremont had pulled the image of Supervisory Special Agent Robert DiMarco from an earlier pile. He'd reinserted it and now this is the result.

He can see only three choices, either the man they are looking for is simply not in their files, he looks enough like DiMarco to fool someone several times - or Tremont is right.

But that is madness. It's more likely that their quarry is not in their records than that…

"Nurse Tremont, before you go, I would very much like for you to meet someone."

xxx

Jimmy Palmer, no more able to wait than Michelle is, manages to get his apartment door open. Both of them stumble through into his living room, their lips and bodies locked in a struggle equal parts lust and desperation. Michelle, determined to push away the madness in any way she can, tugs at his shirt, fairly ripping the interfering material from his body as he pulls her clothing away. She had long ago stopped wearing shirts with buttons on any day when they might possibly get together. Now more often than not she wears pull over and stretch material, letting it be pulled off her body even while performing the impressive feat of getting this done and pulling his clothes off without breaking their kiss for longer than a second. Her shirt flies up her arms, her bra is pulled off and goes somewhere, she has no idea where nor does she care as she tugs open his belt.

Catching the waistband of her pants, he pushes them and her panties down to her knees in one urgent push, but this is just as she starts to take a step back to urge him on to the bedroom and her legs are trapped by the material. She gives a little shriek as she starts to topple over backward, clinging to him and pulling him down after her.

Not wanting to fall on top of her, he twists his body hard as they fall, turning so she lands atop him instead. "OW!" he exclaims as his back hits the floor at the same moment that her left elbow rams into his ribs.

She gets off him quickly. "Honey, are you okay?"

He'd love to answer what he considers a vastly ridiculous question were the pain in his ribs any less overwhelming. As it is, the best he can do is lie on his back and grimace.

"Honey, I'm sorry!" Kneeling beside him, she slips her hands under his and, not giving in to hesitation or uncertainty, feels the comforting energy of the Goddess move in her, down her arms, into her hands, making them tingle and grow warm. The magic she focuses imparts a sensation to her hands she'd long since stopped trying to put into words. She concentrates, visualizing the power being driven into his body, focusing only on keeping the flow of power going, directing it to stop the pain.

It's a draining experience, but seconds before she feels herself completely bereft of strength he relaxes. "Enough," he whispers. "That's enough, I'm fine."

She doesn't so much stop as collapse, pitching forward with a sigh as he catches her arms, turning over and easing her onto her back, he kneeling above her now. "'Chelle?"

"Thank you, Goddess," she breathes tiredly, lying limp upon the floor.

"I wish you wouldn't _do_ that! I worry when you do things like this. I wasn't hurt that badly. You didn't have to–"

"Where would you be without me?" she whispers tiredly.

"Probably staying in a lot more pain, but–"

"Shhhh, I'll recover in a minute, just need to get my strength back. The Goddess will help me even as she helped you. Meantime," she realizes all she has left are her pants and panties about her ankles and reaches up to him and whispers sensuously, "you've got a naked, helpless girl on your floor. What are you going to do?"

xxx

Tim McGee pulls Ziva close as they lie upon her bed, her nearly bare body molding sensuously into his as he caresses her, his fingers nimbly undoing the tiny clasp that holds her black bra in place. She leans back enticingly, drawing the straps off her shoulders and lowering the cups, sighing hotly to his kisses and hotter licks.

She had told their colleagues that she was bringing him to his home, that he has been on duty too long while recovering from his wounds. But her apartment is closer and she can't wait. The pressures of the day, the worries and fears have to be excised, and between them they have the best of all possible solutions to the tensions they have to endure. She sighs loudly, crying out in the pleasure of his lips on her and the anticipation built by his tugging her panties down her legs. She pulls his clothes out of the way, pushing discarded material off the bed and out of the way, long ready for everything he wants to do.

They have to be careful, his bandaged wounds are still livid upon his chest, back and arms, the gauzed, burned flesh far from healed. But in the throes of passion there's no pain and she looks forward to getting him to that point where he feels nothing but her.

Finally she has no more fear, no more anxiety, no more jealous anger. They're together now and always and there is nothing for either of them but each other. She pulls him to her, quite content to let it seem he is the one pressing her to the bed. She is well ready for him.

Their passion is a living thing, growing wild and hot, almost mindless in the throes of wild ecstasy. Minute by minute they're lost in passion, the bed screeching from the strain as he drives her as she screams, rising to greater and greater levels of burning –

x

She stops, her expression changing from orgasmic ecstasy to white hot fury. She grabs his burnt arms tightly, making him wince in pain as she squeezes his burned flesh, pushes him upward off her and brings her leg up between their bodies. She plants her foot on his burned chest and shoves with all her strength, throwing him completely off the bed. He lands hard and loudly upon the floor, crying out in agony, shocked by the forceful ejection as she springs off the bed, looking down at him and screaming in scarlet faced fury. "_GET OUT_!"

"Wha–?" he doesn't know what has happened as she starts to kick him. He tries to evade her and scrambles to his feet, unable to understand her sudden berserk rage.

"GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE RIGHT _NOW _BEFORE I BREAK YOUR DAMNED NECK!"

"Zee, wha–?" He backs away from her furious screams. Rather than striking him with deadly force, she snatches at his clothes upon the floor and flings them one by one at him as she drives him back out of the bedroom.

"GET OUT OF HERE AND DO NOT _EVER _COME BACK!" She continues flinging clothing at him, he barely managing to catch half of it as he backs away into the living room.

"Zee – at least _tell_ me what I did!"

"GET OUT!" she shrieks, trying to keep from attacking him, trying to be merciful. "DO NOT EVEN TALK TO ME AT WORK! IF YOU ARE NOT OUT OF HERE IN THREE SECONDS I AM GOING TO _KILL _YOU!

Astounded, hurrying out of the room, the of clothes bundled in his arms, he makes it out the apartment door just in time. She slams it behind him.

Standing naked outside her door, Tim prays no neighbor will open a door as he very tentatively knocks on the wood. "Zee? Come on, Zee, at least tell me what I–"

The door flies open, he never has a chance to evade her fist! He's knocked to the floor and his clothing rains down upon him and the door slams hard enough to vibrate the entire hallway.

Sitting up, holding his chin and flexing his jaw, he hopes it has not been dislocated. Listening carefully, he hears only silence.

x

In the quiet, naked and mystified, his hand pressed to his aching jaw as he tests it carefully, he tries to play back their last moments on the bed. He searches for a clue to her rage and what he can do to fix it. They'd started out so well, if cautiously due to his burns and injuries, but this care was abandoned. Mounting lust drove all other sensations from them and he could feel no pain in the throes of passion. Their ardor had grown wild, unrestrained. She was screaming in orgasmic delight and he was telling her 'darling, I love you - oh you beautiful - oh darling - oh Siobhan–'

"Ohhhh – _SHIT_!"


	7. Endless Nightmare

Chapter Seven  
Endless Nightmare

There is no moon to relieve the gloom near the docks on the Potomac on the Washington / Virginia border. Robert DiMarco, Kevin Lamb, Lisa DuBois and Janet Levy get out of their car and their flashlights cut through the darkness. It has been a very long day, and at 2330 they're approaching the conclusion of their double shift. There will barely be time to make it home tonight and squeeze in a few hours rest before they must be back on duty for another 16 hour day. None complain, however; someone is picking them off one by one, and that is enough to drive thoughts of sleep from anyone. Of course, one soon reaches the point where even operating on the most minimal level of alertness is impossible. When that happens, no amount of hours can justify the lack of attentiveness.

The human mind and body can endure only so much stress, whether it is physical exhaustion or the unremitting fear of death. DiMarco evaluates his team, then turns to his Senior Field Agent. "Tomorrow everyone gets three hours sleep, work it out."

"Yes, sir."

DiMarco would rather be shorthanded than for any of his people, mentally exhausted, to succumb to the sleep of death.

But now is not the time for rest, now is the time for answers. He'd taken a call less than half an hour ago from a woman who claimed to know something about the killings of NCIS agents.

DiMarco has parked in a huge lot near the river, one undergoing extensive reconstruction, instantly hating the situation. "If I'd known, I'd've said no."

"Right with you, boss," Kevin Lamb says, his hand on his Sig signaling the women to do the same. Piles of earth are scattered about, which interferes with daytime parking and does worse for nighttime vision. With the Potomac on one side and a series of dark warehouses on the other, the situation, in a word, 'stinks'. "It feels like a made-to-order trap."

"Get low," DiMarco orders, the others going into a crouch around him, eyes scanning the area. "Anyone sees anything suspicious and we pull out."

"Amen," Lisa DuBois whispers.

x

DiMarco wears a heavy jacket, a thicker version of the NCIS Federal Agent jacket the others wear, claiming that he feels the cold more because of the late nights and double shifts. Lamb, DuBois and Levy wish they'd followed his lead. October nights are not as pleasant as September. However, the black allows them to blend into the shadows that covers too much of the area.

As they scan, cautious of traps, a soft voice calls to them. "You're NCIS agents?"

Normally this wouldn't provoke four guns aimed toward the sound of the voice, but these are unusual times. DiMarco signals to them to lower their weapons, seeing the cringing woman looking out from behind a pile of rock and dirt.

Having little choice, the Team Leader stands up, takes a step closer, hopes he's not making the last mistake of a jaded life. "Special Agent Robert DiMarco," he introduces the rest of his team, hoping she won't run. "There's no need to be afraid, we spoke on the phone." He notes with approval that his people are still on alert. He's watching the woman; Lamb, Levy and DuBois are watching everything else.

"What did I say?" she asks, distrusting him, perhaps distrusting everything.

"You told me you had information on the people behind the deaths of our agents. You wanted to exchange it for safe passage and protection."

"They're in there," she points across the river, "that building, the one with the red light on top." The blinking red light is part of an airway directional guide system for planes making the long run into Ronald Reagan.

"We see it."

"They may even be able to see me - I can't imagine what I was thinking. You have to protect me!"

"We won't let anyone get to you," he promises, hoping it's a promise he'll be able to keep. He's interested in everything this woman wants to say.

"Put away your guns."

DiMarco shakes his head. "I think you can appreciate that everyone's a little apprehensive these days."

"I won't talk as long as there are guns out."

x

DiMarco signals to Lamb, the best shot on the team, to remain alert, then to the others to reholster their guns, doing the same himself. Lamb pretends to slip his Sig into the holster, then drops his hand, keeping the gun by his black pants leg instead, counting on the darkness to hide his actions.

The woman slowly straightens up, doing so all the way a moment later when no one shoots her.

Directing the others to remain where they are, DiMarco approaches with his empty hands far from his sides. "What do you have to tell us?"

"Not you all, not all of you, I don't trust too many. You. I'll tell you, not them. But you have to guarantee me you'll get me out safely."

"Whatever you tell us, we'll make sure no one gets to you."

She looks around skittishly. "Not here." She looks around again; then chooses a darkened doorway of a warehouse. "In there, where no one can see me. But leave your gun or its no deal."

The look he shares with Lamb says a great deal. He hands his Senior Field Agent his gun, again extending his hands outward to show he's harmless. Side by side he walks with the frightened woman into the darkness until they are lost through the door of the warehouse.

Lisa DuBois glances across the river. "She gave them up way too easily."

"Janet, you go left, but no closer than fifty feet, I don't want to spook her if she sees us. Lisa, you go right. I'll swing wide beyond you, Lisa, and check the far field."

x

Assuming different vantage points accomplishes little, there is nothing to be seen until the door again opens into darkness and they recognize DiMarco coming out. He looks about, spots each of them, then heads back to where they'd been standing. The team rendezvous at their former position. "What did you see?"

"All quiet, Kemo Sabe," Lamb tells him in an especially deep voice.

"Good work, Tonto." He looks at the others, then glances back at the door. "She's going to hide there until we're done, then we take her back to Headquarters and protect her."

"From what?" DuBois asks.

"You believe her?" Levy does not.

"Not a damn word, but at this point we can't afford to pass up any lead. We'll take her with us and drain her dry. In the meantime I want you three to lay low here and keep watch." He looks along the various docks. "I'm going to take _that_ boat in," he points to a small black rowboat, the only black one among a set of three white boats tied up at the small dock closest to them, "and do a recon."

"You shouldn't go alone." Lisa DuBois protests, but he shakes his head.

"I'm used to the old 'run silent, run deep'."

"That's submariner, you were Marine." Levy isn't trying to remind him; just to get him to reconsider what she's certain is a mistake.

"I'll go to within thirty yards off shore and see what I can see close up. You three watch here and wait for backup," he pats the cell phone in the pocket of his thick jacket. "They should be here soon."

xx

DiMarco goes down to the dock, grateful he'd had the foresight to dress all in black. He doesn't know if anyone from the other side of the river is watching, he takes it as a given that they are. Therefore he moves cautiously, keeping low to minimize his aspect. When he reaches the boat, unties it and pushes off, crouching into the seat, hoping the black boat will afford him his best cover. Extending the oars, he puts them into the water, pulling gently, not causing a ripple or a wake. His motion across the river slow, he keeps only enough pressure against the current to angle a direct line to the other side without fighting the flow.

xx

"I don't like any of this," Kevin Lamb says, his attention on the outer range while Lisa focuses on the building where their informant hides. "We're too exposed here and lately I'm scared of the dark."

"I'm with you," Janet Levy says, peering intently into the blackness beyond the dock.

"I'm going to break out the night vision goggles, something we should have done when we got here." Their car is parked five yards away, but he points first to a low rise. "Lisa, that pile of debris, make sure you can see the door but keep low. Janet, get behind that Caterpillar." He indicates the hulking treaded machine stopped about twenty five feet to their left.

As the women take up defended positions while monitoring the dock, warehouses and loading areas without making themselves targets for potential snipers, Lamb goes to the parked car, returning less than a minute later to crouch beside Janet, handing her a set of goggles. "Nothing about this feels right. Why would she call us out to the middle of nowhere, then not insist upon being brought to safety first before spilling her guts?"

"It makes as much sense as my son's math homework. Can you see him?" Lisa calls quietly.

"Barely," Janet Levy admits, keeping her own voice low, straining to keep DiMarco in sight while the others have been scanning the area about them, alert for traps or intruders. As good as the night vision goggles are, they have limited resolution but Jan's too far away to get one yet; she'll have to break her position. "Black on black on black - against a black background. 'Run silent, run deep' indeed. He's about midway across, hunched down low, he's stopped rowing about thirty seconds ago, just drifting. Guess he decided that's close enough. I can't see _him_, just the boat, right over–"

Even as she points the explosion lights up the night, the column of fire hurtling a hundred feet into the air, the spray from the momentary crater in the water launched out to all sides. Light sears their eyes, blinds them, Lamb throws his goggles violently to the ground. The concussion strikes the three agents and drives them against their improvised barriers, their cries of pain from the blinding light drowned out by the deafening blast, then the deluge of water hits them.

x

Moments later, when vision gradually returns to tearing eyes, all the horrified agents can see of the boat are small, widely separated, burning fragments. Of their Team Leader they can see nothing.

Kevin Lamb feels his blood pressure explode as well. "Get that _bitch_ out here!" he points emphatically to the warehouse door even as he pulls his cell phone out of his pocket. "Drag her by her hair if you have to! If she knew this was going to happen I'm going to–" But there is little to be accomplished by giving in to emotion, high as it is. He yanks out his phone, stabs a speed dial combination. The two women hurry to follow the Senior Field's orders, each wanting a piece of the woman as well.

Lisa reaches the door first, pausing at its side, ready for a bullet to fly through even as Janet takes the opposite side. "Get out here!" Janet yells and pounds hard on the door, in no mood for delay or courtesy. If this woman set them up, she might not make it to the river intact. Janet gives her one second, then steps out and kicks the door near the latch as hard as she can. The door flies inward and Janet aims her gun through the portal as Lisa comes around the door, her own gun aimed.

Neither woman finds any reason to fire.

"Oh _shi_–!" Lisa reaches in as Janet covers the black interior, Lisa uses the barrel of her Sig to flip up the light switch.

x

The woman who was to be their informant lies crumpled upon the warehouse floor, her body laying like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Though she lies prone, only the back of her body visible, her face is turned upward, sightless eyes staring at the ceiling.

"This must have happened when we were distracted by the explosion," Janet decides. Lisa and Kevin had been watching the entire area until that moment.

Lisa kills the light and the agents back out of the doorway, having been unable to see, while the lights had been on, more than a few yards into the warehouse piled high with dozens of places to hide. Using the goggles isn't much more help, there are too many crates, too much junk in the way. Whoever killed this woman may be in the warehouse or somewhere on the grounds, but the area is vast and their resources slim. Better to await reinforcements than to use night vision goggles to probe the blackness and risk getting killed.

xxx

The initial backup team of Fred Higgins, Max Crawford, Sol Mitchner and Susan Bourne, arrive only a minute before the first of the Emergency units summoned by nearly a thousand calls from both sides of the river. Unneeded ambulances and barely useful Metro Police units crowd the area. They are supplemented within fifteen minutes by two FBI vehicles and four NCIS units; three MCR and the Medical Examiner's van. By the time Jennifer Shepherd arrives from her home, night has been turned into day by nearly a hundred rotating, steady or strobe lights of red, blue, yellow and white, all competing in an eye-straining cacophony of color.

Shepherd only wants to know one thing, it's a question asked half a hundred times already but rarely with such fire: "What the _Hell_ happened?"

Kevin Lamb's own harsh words barely convey the depth of his emotion. He's just witnessed his friend and Team Leader blown to Hell and is in no mood for anyone getting into his face, not even NCIS' Director. Tears are held for later, right now only anger dominates the trio. "We were following a lead from a woman who claimed to be part of the 'McGillicuddy, Crocetti and Morrison' ring, who said she wanted out and was willing to trade information for safety."

"_Why didn't I know about this_?" If words or anger held physical force it would have blasted the agents back. As it is it only causes them to look among themselves. They're already suffering from DiMarco's shocking and are unsure how to respond to this failure of procedure.

'McGillicuddy, Crocetti and Morrison' have crash priority, the Director is to be kept informed of all developments. Now they must admit that "We thought Bob–" Lamb begins.

"Didn't he–?" Janet can't help but cut in.

"No he _didn't_!" It takes a lot for Jennifer to shut herself up, but she manages it. She's here to gather information, to learn why _another_ valuable agent - and friend - a _fourth _SSA - has died, not to pin blame. "From the top, tell me _everything_!"

xx

"What I don't understand is how it could happen," Levy says, tightly restraining the urge to scream out her rage. "How did they rig the boat?"

"Did the call come through Dispatch?" Shepherd demands.

Lisa DuBois pulls out her cell phone, calling to find the answer to that seething question. "Yes, Dispatch sent the call through 92 minutes ago. Bob was Senior Agent by your direction. All unusual calls go to Higgins, Gibbs, Jos– I mean Kelman, and Bob."

"But how the hell did they know to rig the boat?" Levy continues. A check by Higgins' team had shown no other boat had been rigged.

"We were set up," Shepherd concludes. "They probably knew this woman was going to break, or they worked with her, this was a trap and they killed her when they were done. They have profilers too; they knew Bob would take a boat over and knew to rig the black one. He'd choose the black one over the others."

"Then once she served her purpose, they killed her," Levy agrees.

"Where is this woman?" Shepherd demands.

"Just inside the doorway to that warehouse," Lisa DuBois replies, pointing to the open door where Ducky and Jimmy work. Higgins and his team have swept the building and declared it clear. There are, at least, no murderers lurking about. The next step is to see if he left any forensic evidence behind.

x

On the edge of the river three men in wet suits are about to enter the water, to find what they can under, or down river of, the position the agents have agreed marks the last moment of the life of their leader.

Emotions are high but tightly restrained. Grief must give way to professional training but nothing can compete with the anger. They'd walked blindly into a trap, and another agent - the _ninth _- has died.

Fred Higgins, watching the divers, keeps his own thoughts to himself. Little more than an hour ago he'd been in the uncomfortable position of having to consider that a witness had picked out Bob DiMarco as a possible suspect. There can be no doubt now that the identification had been a mistake. Higgins hadn't believed it could be anything other than a coincidental misidentification, a mistake based on a lack of sufficient photos of more likely suspects.

His colleague Bob DiMarco has been cleared of any imaginable suspicion in the worst possible manner.

He heads toward the row of white boats moored on the shore. They've been checked for bombs, but will each have to be thoroughly checked inside and out.

x

All about the area agents search, collect evidence and review testimony. Jennifer Shepherd stares across the river at the Virginia building identified as the stronghold - no, the alleged stronghold - of their enemy.

If it is what it's reputed to be, she'll see it stormed as no building has ever been before.

xxx

The office window behind Jennifer Shepherd is as black as her mood. "In the past few days," she says to Gibbs who stands on the opposite side of her desk, "we have not only lost _two whole Teams, _but two _more_ Team Leaders are dead." The death of four out of twelve Supervisory Special Agents is a devastating loss, one that she hadn't been prepared to bear. Beyond the value of their experience and ability, these men and women were more than colleagues, they were friends.

She knows that Gibbs feels the pain as badly as she does, she can see it in the set of his face. The feelings he feels are so intense he can only show her a mask that blanks grief and incendiary fury.

"I want you and all the others to be _especially _careful. Don't take _any _chances. Martine Joswig was murdered in her home and the only significant clue is a flood of fingerprints from an unidentified suspect. Bob DiMarco was _set up_ to take the only black boat among several white ones; his recon mission was a trap. Divers found traces of what could be a timer, but there's too much _junk_ at the bottom of the river and we need more analysis to see if everything that was turned up actually has anything at all to do with the explosion." She'd ridden the divers to get this information; now, at nearly 0400, the situation is grimmer than ever.

"Meanwhile," she continues, "I want you to look into that building that woman identified."

"If she was working with them, it'll be a diversion."

"I know that, but if it can be confirmed that it's the 'McGillicuddy, Crocetti and Morrison' stronghold, I want it hit with everything we have. You're to lead the assault."

"NCIS isn't the Navy or Marines," Gibbs reminds her.

"No, but we do know how to handle ourselves in a fight. This is War. McGillicuddy and Company may have started it but we're going to finish it. There will be nothing of FBI, CIA or anything else in this mission: NCIS is going to go in and clean house."

xxx

When the elevator doors open to Autopsy, Gibbs is surprised to encounter Ducky, dressed in his light overcoat, exiting the dark room. "Going somewhere?"

"Yes, Jethro, I am going home." When the man looks up at him and the brim of his hat clears his eyes, Gibbs can see the heavy dark circles under them. Ducky waves his hand expansively to the rows of cooling units that line the left wall of the dark room; Gibbs knows almost all of them are full. "In the past few days I have conducted - excuse me, _attempted_ to conduct - twelve autopsies in the time it normally takes to conduct one or two, _excluding_ the young woman from the docks. I had called Mr. Palmer in quite early this morning and have already sent him home. It is three forty five in the morning and I shall see you later."

Gibbs considers how long he had been running on adrenaline. It's time – past time – to send his own people home.

"Can you tell me anything?"

Ducky's sigh is equal parts tiredness and concession. "X-rays show the 3rd and 4th vertebrae were completely separated, her head was turned around about as far as it could go, about 200 degrees, far more so than is needed to kill."

"Any defensive or offensive wounds?"

"None I could find tonight, but I shall conduct a more thorough search in the morning. I cannot say if she knew her attacker or was caught by surprise, but she certainly had no chance against him."

"Or her?"

Ducky hesitates, pushing back fatigue to consider this. "I'm inclined to think that, with this much force used, you are looking for a strong or very motivated individual."

xxx

"You got a lead on our Jane Doe yet, DiNozzo?" The Senior Field Agent is the only one in the dark room.

"Your timing is phenomenal as always, boss. Jane Doe came through as Jane Parkerson, 39 years old, residing at 2847 Florida Avenue NE and she's on the Terror Alert Watch List, the No-Fly List and four other lists. She dropped off the radar about four months ago. Credit cards cancelled, driver's license expired and not renewed, she became a ghost long before someone made her look behind herself."

"Good. Go home."

"I already did, this is just the echo."


	8. Trial and Tribulation

Chapter Eight  
Trial and Tribulation

Morning comes oppressively early. Tim McGee is the first to reach his desk; he'd been the first to leave last evening but, he suspects, he's gotten the least sleep. Not only is he feeling very mortal following the deaths of nine friends but his personal life has just gone down in flames. Now at 0700, he sits quietly at his desk wondering how he can possibly recover any of it. When the elevator rings and Ziva David steps out onto the floor, he decides this is perhaps his one chance to speak to her privately, to correct a disaster.

He gets out from behind his desk, intercepting her before she can enter the bullpen, keeping his voice low so he will not attract attention from the Gamma Shift Agents just calling it a night.

"Zee, I'm sorry."

"Do not talk to me, McGee," she warns, pushing past him, going to her desk, ignoring his existance.

"How can I make this up to you?"

She whirls on him. "You _cannot_, McGee, not _this_ time." She hasn't called him 'McGee' since he'd become 'Tim' after the Hotel Maritz debacle. Her voice is utterly cold, devoid of all feeling.

"Zee, I lo–"

She clutches his shirt in tight fists, "You tell me you 'love me' and I _will_ kill you!" Her fury is white hot, he can't remember her ever being so angry at him, other than last night. "Abby was bad enough, but _this_ I cannot _take_!"

"Zee–"

"NO!" She slams her fists into his chest to push him away. "You have made your choice and that is it!"

"Zee, I haven't made any–"

"We are _done_," her quiet words hold a scream in tight check. "Do you _get_ it? Finished - kaput; you say one more word to me that is not workrelatedand I shall rip out your tongue and send it to her!"

He backs cautiously away, believing every word of the threat.

xxx

Gibbs walks into the Forensics lab, passing the IAFIS computer. On its left side is displayed a static image of a fingerprint, but on the other side a rapid series of images flash at mind numbing speed. "This is from Martine's apartment?"

"Yep." The word comes from miles away.

"How long until you find a match?"

She bites back an exasperated sigh. "Come on, Gibbs, you know how it is. When I know, you'll know – though you usually know about it a few seconds before I do," she admits. "If they're anywhere in the system, they're pretty deep. I don't know if this guy's got a record or not, but I'm beginning to doubt it."

"What files are you checking?"

"FBI, CIA as much as I can get into it, Terror Alert, Police, the usual. It just takes time."

"Are there any you don't run, as a matter of course?"

"Well, sure. If I did everything it would add days to the search, so I take the most likely ones first, narrow them down."

"What if you ran all of them? Everything, including the stuff you never run."

She turns to him, suspicious. "You've got something, haven't you?"

"Run them."

Abby smiles, but there's no pleasure in it. It's a preditory smile, a baring of teeth rather than her softer, closed lips smile. "Running. Don't come back today."

xxx

Hours later, hours too flooded with tension and agents nearly snapping at one another in their efforts not to let the tension get into their manners, Tim returns from lunch. He'd wanted to spend his break time with Shav, Gibbs forbade it, ordering him off base for a full lunch hour. He'd almost refused; his dearest friend had been the victim of the McGillicuddy, Crocetti and Morrison machine through the devious plotting of 'Doctor' McFadden and it'd been McGee's fault. He'd spent the past day splitting his mind between the hunt and her - that had to be why her name slipped out - certainly no romantic or sexual feeling but she's in his mind for guilt. He'd wanted to see her, and cursed Gibbs' order, but he had obeyed.

When he returns, DiNozzo is already out of his seat. He sits down at his desk and snatches his phone at the first half beep of the intercom. "McGee!"

"God, Tim, you must be trying to hatch that phone," Abby teases. But then her voice drops slightly, "Tim, I heard about what happened…."

"Scuttlebutt–"

"is alive and well. I just wanted to say–"

"Abby, I'm a little stressed out righ–"

"Then let me give you good news. Bring your weapon and meet me in Obs One in five minutes."

"I'll be there in one!"

xx

In the dark Observation room Tim and Abby look through the glass at Siobhan O'Mallory lying asleep under a light blue blanket on Abby's day bed. The music fed from the machines to their left contains the enhanced recordings of Abby's subliminal messages, intended to counteract the insidious commands of McGillicuddy, Crocetti and Morrison to distrust, to resent, to kill. They had worked once before, Tim prays they've worked again.

To him the sleeping woman looks peaceful, but this is an illusion painted, he feels, more by his wants than reality. For over thirty hours, with the exception of brief breaks to deal with essentials, she has been unconscious, held so by the subliminal messages playing within the music while the 'anti-brainwashing' disks Abby had created had done their work under the ongoing music. Now it's time to test their effectiveness. He feels a tight knot in the pit of his stomach he wishes he could remove.

Part of this is guilt. He has no idea what had caused him to speak so stupidly last night to Ziva, but this guilt is coupled with the knowledge that what Siobhan has been going through is his fault.

He'd recruited her into NCIS, saying he was doing so for the good of the Service and for her benefit as well, but he can't deny he'd wanted her close, wanted her near him where he could see her more often. But if he had not, she wouldn't have been assaulted and nearly raped by the late Dennis Whitney and might not have fallen victim to Elizabeth McFadden.

No matter how he analyzes it, his guilt assaults him, telling him that everything that has happened to Shav is his fault.

x

In her hand Abby holds McGee's Sig. "The sedative will have completely metabolized over an hour ago, she's only asleep. You understand, Tim, this is not a guarantee. We have to test the progress of the CD."

"It worked on you – in less time." He can't keep the stress from his voice as he stares at Siobhan. She seems to be sleeping peacefully, but what is going on in her mind, in her dreams, things that for all Abby's work she has no control over?

"It was my voice. I knew exactly what to tell myself. This is–"

"Can we just _do this_?" he demands, making her take a step back.

"All right, Tim," she starts to turn, stung by his fire, but he stops her with his hand upon her arm.

"Abby, I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to do that. It's just that I'm - that is, I think..."

She pulls him into a tight hug.

"I know, McGee. We'll all get through this." When she releases him, very reluctantly indeed, she tries to finish quickly. "Remember, this is the first test, but even if it doesn't go well I swear I'm not giving up."

"I know. I just - would rather not wait any more."

She leads him out of the dark room, not letting him see her smile.

x

In the lighted Interrogation room, Abby signals to the operator behind the mirror and the soothing music goes quiet. Tim bends over the day bed and reaches out, concentrating on every prayer and appeal he can think of as he gently shakes Siobhan's shoulder. "Shav? Wake up." She stirs, moving uncertainly, disoriented. Abby takes her hand, giving her the gold framed glasses. Siobhan opens them, pulls them on and smiles at her company.

"Timmy, Abby," she looks about, the room almost unfamiliar. She had been here before, but not lying upon a daybed so at first she doesn't recognize it. This is Interrogation, a room she'd sworn she'd never willingly enter again after her own Interrogation by Special Agent Gibbs. Obviously someone hadn't known her preferences, not that it matters. If she's awake, and Timmy is here, had the treatment worked? She checks under the blanket and then pushes it down to her waist.

"How are you, Shav?"

She tries to force away the slumber of a full day plus. "I'm rather hoping you'll tell me," she answers, focusing on Abby. "Am I cured?" She turns to Tim. "A chuisle mo chroi, am I cured?"

Realization hits Siobhan like a slap in the face, bringing her instantly awake. She'd thoughtlessly called Timmy 'pulse of my heart' or 'my darling'. She struggles to sit up, accepting help from her friends, trying not to imagine what insanity had made those words slip out. She can't be cured if she can so thoughtlessly–

Abby sets Tim's gun upon her lap.

x

Siobhan looks at it as though it's the loathsome tentacle of some disgusting creature. "What is this?" She doesn't want this thing in her lap, utterly repulsed by it and the memory of what she'd been compelled to do to her best friend.

"Just a test," Abby assures her. "You know, you scared the life out of me when I said 'Secret Squirrel and Batfink' and you–"

Her heart turns over as Siobhan picks up the gun.

x

She presses it into McGee's hand. "_Not_ funny, you two! Get this _thing_ away from me!"

Tim puts it into his holster, feeling his own heart half ready to right itself again – as soon as he can drag it down from his throat.

"Let me be clear on this," Abby insists. "You have absolutely _no_ compulsion to blow McGee's brains out?"

"_No_! None!" They're so visibly relieved that she's offended. "Did you two think that –?"

"If it hadn't worked you'd have been forced to try to use that gun on–."

"You mean you put a _loaded gun_ in my lap thinking I was going to–?"

"It's not loaded," Tim cuts off the rapid fire recriminations, draws it, releases the latch and shows her the empty clip. She sighs in relief. "I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid."

"I sometimes contest that," she assures him, smiling more to Abby than to her old friend. "But next time please find some _other _way to test me," she gets up from the day bed, needing Abby's help to steady herself after over thirty hours on the bed. She tugs Abby into a tight hug. "And _thank you_!"

The hug she gives Tim is considerably longer, so much so that after a time Abby thinks she might have to use something to pry them apart.

x

When Siobhan finally releases Tim, her expression carefully revealing nothing but gratitude, she needs his help to stay on her feet. After over thirty hours asleep she is uncoordinated, but when she can stand she notices the large mirror to her left. She's utterly appalled. These hours of undoubtedly restless sleep have taken their toll; her Clerical uniform of blue and black, which had been reasonably presentable during her last break an unknown time ago, is a wrinkled mess and her fiery red hair is a disheveled conflagration. "Oh, God," she's further embarrassed to know the reality of the supposed mirror even while wanting to reach out to cover McGee's eyes, "I'm a mess."

"No, you're not." Tim denies. To him, though he would never – ever – say it aloud, she never looks anything other than beautiful.

"Fibber McGee."

"Molly."

The name slips out, accidently harkening back to an earlier time, a time of much more intimate friendship and now she's truly embarrassed, her red blush deepening even as Tim's expression shows his own distress at the flub.

Abby, sensing something is wrong and knowing she'll never know what, endeavors to come to the rescue. "We have a shower downstairs in the gym locker room. You can borrow some of my workout clothes to go home in."

"Thank you," Siobhan says, grateful for the distraction. As they start out, Tim takes a step to follow.

"Where do you think _you're_ going?" Abby challenges, recalling Gibbs had used the same words to him just yesterday morning.

"I was – er – just trying to help."

"The women's shower is a _naked_ place, McGee. You're just going to have to settle for memories." She realizes as another blush deepens Siobhan's face that she couldn't have said a worse thing. But then Siobhan, in an attempt to ease the sting of Abby's words, puts her arms about Tim, wanting to show her gratitude for all he had done for her.

He holds her close and doesn't notice when she stiffens uncomfortably.

x

As much as she had wanted him to hold her in his arms, she's suddenly vastly uncomfortable in the intimate embrace.

"Tim, if you really want to help," Abby directs, having seen the expression on the woman's face, "you and Peterson can put my daybed back where it belongs."

McGee releases her before Siobhan has to pull away, saving her at least one degree of embarrassment. Both women leave quickly.

xx

Abby keeps her curiosity bottled up until they reach the locker room, which she feels is quite an accomplishment. But as she gets an empty laundry bag off a small stack in the corner, bringing it back so Siobhan can deposit her clothes to bring back to the Rectory, her cork feels ready to pop. "Siobhan, would it be all right if I asked you something personal?"

"I've told you, Abby; you can ask me anything you want. The worst I'll do is not answer."

She told her that the night Abby had sought shelter in the priest's apartment while hiding from a homicidal madman. It had been the last night of that apartment's existence, and since then Abby wonders how much behind the scenes had changed, and how much would when she asks this question.

"Are you in love with McGee?"

She'd been ready for anything, dissemblance, stalling, anything except the fierce anger the woman sears her with.

"Why does _everyone_ keep asking me that question?"

Abby steps back, surprised, but doesn't back off. "It's just that I see how you look when you look at him. Even your voice is different when you talk to him and now upstairs–"

"I _will not_ love Timmy McGee!"

If Abby had been surprised before, she is doubly so at this impassioned declaration. 'Do not' is one thing; to so passionately decry 'will not' is on an entirely new level. "Why not?"

"_None of your_–!"

x

But then she stops, recalling to whom she is speaking and what has passed between them already. Abby had been let into so much on the overnight visit before her apartment had been blown up. She tries to push away feelings and keep her mind only on facts, on reality, to explain herself calmly. She isn't aware of how her brogue, usually melodious, grows sharper with her emotion.

"There is no chance at all that Timmy and I could ever have a relationship like that. Whatever we were to one another in the past, we are very different people. As the saying goes, 'we are just friends'. There's too much in my life that is uncertain, even more that's beyond my control. There's a lot about my future that is out of my hands – and I have been hurt once. But worse than the hurt, my life and future are not my own; I answer to higher powers and am bound by oaths that–" She forces herself to silence, lest she reveal too much.

"It just wouldn't – _won't_ work. It's impossible - so I won't even _consider_ it. Besides that, I do _not _interfere in relationships. He is with Officer David and I–"

"No, he's not."

"What?"

xxx

McGee puts down his phone after being told by Abby that she has turned Siobhan O'Mallory over to the care of Fr. Donaldson at the main entrance of NCIS Headquarters, with strong advice to return home and rest. Though it had been clear that Siobhan had no intention to follow that last bit of advice, Tim has confidence in Donaldson's determination to see to their companion's best interest. He is just sorry he has not had the chance to see Shav off, frustrated at the lost opportunity to see her one more time.

Abby had told him she'd used the power of science to convince the priest to sleep. There is a lot, she'd said, that Shav has to adjust to, to integrate, including a shock she'd only alluded to but wouldn't share. McGee is annoyed, less for that evasion than that he'd really wanted to see Siobhan. It's not fair, he had so short a time with her and now she's gone. It's not fair. He knows he has to concentrate on the hunt for McGillicuddy and company, they're at war for their lives but damn it, it's not fair!

He doesn't notice, least of all to admit to himself, just how many times he looks forward to seeing the woman, or how it feels when he cannot.

x

As he turns to his monitor, Ziva reports that "The building identified as belonging to 'McGillicuddy, Crocetti and Morrison' is actually owned by Xerxes, a Real Estate Firm that owns a considerable amount of property in Virginia and West Virginia. They lease space to an impressive number of clients and tenants, but _officially_ 'McGillicuddy, Crocetti and Morrison' are not among them."

"That's starting to become my favorite word, right up there with 'unofficially'," DiNozzo says. "What about 'unofficially'."

"Unofficially – or officially – the second through thirty-ninth floors are occupied - but look at this." She brings up a daylight image of the building across the river from last night's crime scene. "_That_ is a forty story building. And there is only one way that I know of to account for this."

"Extra tall lobby?" DiNozzo asks.

"No, Tony," McGee declares, picking up the thread, "this building has an unregistered thirteenth floor."

"Buildings don't have thirteenth floors, Probie, it's considered unlucky."

"Well, this one does," Ziva insists, "though it is not accessible and may well be considered lucky by our quarry. If they are there, and I am not saying that they are, that is where you will find them."

"Good work, Ziva," Gibbs declares. "Keep at it; let me know the minute you track down who's in that thirteenth floor. McGee, how's O'Mallory?"

"Abby says she'll be okay, I'm holding my breath." That is not all he's holding but will never admit to anything more. "But she didn't shoot me when Abby gave her the key phrase again."

"Something's hopeful." At this point, Gibbs will take good news wherever he can get it.

"Abby gave her the disk to use for a while. She was several weeks being exposed to McFadden's, we want to be sure she's completely deprogrammed."

"Good, now maybe you can get your mind off her and concentrate on work."


	9. Aligning on Target

Chapter Nine  
Aligning on Target

When Gibbs turns around after that cutting remark he sees Kevin Lamb approaching from the stairs and knows he's run out of good news. The moment he can see the man's eyes, he knows what he's suffering. Gibbs lips press together to shut in his anger. The docs can fancy it up any way they like: 'the effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder' and so forth; he's seen that look too many times, and not always on the battlefield. It's the look of suffering from what used to be called 'shell shock', this time it's from Lamb's having seen his friend and Supervisor blown into a million pieces.

"What have you got?" Gibbs asks, determined to focus upon the facts, on the job, not to feel his own grief or loss, not now, not yet.

"Divers recovered fragments of C4 in the pulverized fragments of the boat, those that went right to the bottom, but they haven't found Bob." The Potomac extends for miles, it's far too extensive to hope that the body of the agent will be easily found. Lost as it was almost midway across the width of the river, it could move on or below the surface for who can say how many miles before it eventually surfaces so search helicopters and divers can reasonably expect to find it. The search had begun within half an hour of the explosion, had been pursued in earnest since first light, but it will take time before news will come in.

The worst part of it is that DiMarco's body will not be found intact. With that much C4, it's likely he was so dismembered it could take weeks to search that entire section of the river to locate all of him. The hunt has increased in difficulty a thousand fold.

Bob has a family. They deserve closure.

They deserve more.

Gibbs is determined they'll get revenge, and if looking into the eyes of the man before him tells anything, he'll have a lot of help getting them that revenge.

xxx

Janet Levy enters the silent third floor office, turning on the light and cannot keep her eyes from flicking to her right, to the empty disk nearest the door. She hadn't wanted to look. She'd wanted to go straight to her own desk at the far left and start any search she possibly could to hunt down her boss' murderer, but she'd looked.

Grief stabs her and she covers her mouth with her hand, trying to restrain a sob. Now that she has seen it, she can't look away.

She won't allow herself to think of the thousands of times she'd entered this room, seeing Bob already on duty at his desk, greeting him with a 'good morning', the casual greeting of someone who knows her friend will always be here.

Always be here.

Now the chair is empty. The computer is off. The pen stands in its holder. The file on his desk, which he'd been working on when the call came in, lies open and still. There's nothing there – and in her mind's eye she can almost see him, almost hear his reply of greeting, almost.…

She tries to look away but she can't. Grief batters her control, she struggles to contain it, her hand smothers her gasping breath. She imagines she feels the last thing he felt. Had he even known he was dying, or was it so fast that–?

The door behind her opens and she manages to turn away from the desk, finding Lisa DuBois framed in the portal. She forces her hand down as their eyes meet, but she can't remove the anguish from her face.

Lisa comes in, allowing the door to close behind her and they embrace, trying to ease the agony of grief in its sharing. Janet tries to contain her tears but a convulsive movement of Lisa's body, an abortive sob undoes her and both women hold tightly to one another, faces buried in each other's shoulders, tears that can't be contained now flow.

They hear the door open again. Consumed by misery, neither can look to see who it is. Neither needs to look, neither wants to look.

A few moments later each feels arms encircle them. No words need be spoken as the three friends hold one another, tears flowing, misery ripped from grief torn hearts.

xxx

"DiNozzo," Gibbs commands sharply, "tell us about Ann Parkerson."

And so it goes. For the next few hours all the resources of NCIS come together on the multitude of investigations into everything from the theft of the PDC Mark 9 plans, the murders of a multitude of scientists by the Assassin known as the 'Iceman', the kidnapping and torture of Tim McGee and the efforts by agents of McGillicuddy, Crocetti and Morrison to obtain the Delphi Code, followed by the murders of over twenty people at a funeral of a fallen Marine, wherein it had seemed the target had been a Brigadier General of the Marines but was actually the NCIS team that had been guarding him.

It leads again to the investigation of who had broken into the Virginia Medical Center's SICU to poison Special Agent Janet White with a thousand times a lethal dose of heroin, which is still not complete despite the fact that the sterile room had been picked apart down to the last microbe. Then the murder of Special Agent Martine Joswig, in her own bedroom, had been followed by the detonation of another C4 bomb in the car containing three more agents. As the dénouement to this mad chain of torturous events, Special Agent Robert DiMarco was set up to be blown apart in a booby trapped rowboat, followed immediately by the silencing of the only potential witness who could tell them who was responsible for these disasters.

In all cases _what_ had been done is painfully obvious. _Who_ had done it is the mystery that still eludes them.

"The Iceman?" DiNozzo asks, not particularly believing it. As unhappy as he and the others are with the highhandedness of the Army in taking this unnamed assassin away and setting him free, this is too much.

McGee, having anticipated, brings up what is known of the Assassin on the plasma screen. "Not his style. He's more the 'hands on' type."

"Campfire!" Tony has his chair partway into the aisle when he sees Gibbs' eyes and pushes back into his place. "Or not."

For the thousandth time Gibbs wishes he still had Kate Todd's talents as a profiler. It is, he decides, high time to find out where those corresponding talents could potentially lie. "Lee!"

"Sir?"

"Profile our hitter."

Her face goes white.

x

"Sir, the, er," she comes out from behind her desk, praying that standing up will help focus, or if not, it will allow her to present a moving target; not quite trusting the understanding she and Special Agent Gibbs have in this tense time. "The killer is skilled with the use of explosives; he did it three times and his work was never noticed. Special Agent Davis' team may not have been expecting a booby trap attack; their attention was on the General and those around him, and Special Agent White's was on the perimeter. Special Agent Gaine's team may or may not have been alert to potential bombs but it didn't save them.

"The biggest problem I have is that whoever did this had access to the back lot where Gaine's car was stored." She sees the look on Ziva's face and cuts her off. "I want to get back to this." She's not ready to voice her own theory – yet.

"I can hardly believe, however, that Special Agent DiMarco could have missed so much C4 unless the bomb was under the boat. But the theory his team is working with is that he seems to have been targeted. The killer knew someone would do a reconnaissance based upon what Ann Parkerson had revealed, and knew which boat to tamper with, the only black one amidst a set of white ones.

"The unknown Assassin might have arranged for the whole thing with Parkerson, from initial call right through the end. Somehow, they knew Agent DiMarco's team would be the one to investigate, and they knew him well enough to know – or predict – what he would do.

"After Parkinson lured Special Agent DiMarco onto that boat, the killer had no further use for her and eliminated her, possibly making his escape out the other side of the warehouse or even the front door in the confusion following the explosion.

"Our killer is a man, identified however poorly by Nurse Tremont, as 'Doctor Stephen Strange', but a man nonetheless, bearing a strong resemblance to that fictional 'Marvel Comics' character. I find it particularly disturbing that he could have been carrying on a relationship with Special Agent Joswig without her revealing the fact to anyone. She had put great efforts into keeping a sexual relationship secret from anyone she worked with, something I find very.…" she hunts for a word.

"Familiar?" DiNozzo offers.

"DiNozzo!"

"Sorry, boss."

Lee tries to hold back her offence, it's not easy. "I was going to say 'unusual'. We're not required to announce who we're dating – though some make a specialty of it."

"Touché."

"But Special Agent Joswig never seemed to suspect that her lover would become her murderer. Why did she miss it?"

"Love is blind." DiNozzo puts in.

"But not stupid. A woman can tell when the one she loves is being unfaithful–" she sees the glare Ziva stabs Tim with and moves on quickly, "and murder is as unfaithful as you can get. Yet she seemed to have missed it."

"Conclusions?" Gibbs insists.

"He is persuasive, distracting, skilled in covert operations and may have had us under observation for quite some time. He has access to our facilities, at some unknown time he planted the bomb in Gaine's team's car. Explosives are his weapon of choice so you are looking for someone with Ordinance training, possibly military. He used C4 in all three bombs so it stands to reason he has access to a considerable volume of it. The yield on the explosions was in every case far greater than was needed. A corner of the casket frame that was not obliterated in Arlington was found over one thousand yards from the grave and the grave itself was pulverized.

"The bomb that killed Special Agent Gaine and his team demolished the car and shattered all three agents. Margaret Calder's skull was found on the rear of the Café roof, five stories up. The bomb that killed Robert DiMarco was maybe ten times more powerful than it had to be. They may be weeks looking for all of him– sir." She doesn't allow herself to forget that Gibbs and DiMarco had been close, and not just in age. SSAs, and before this there had been only twelve, share the same kind of bond those of lower ranks share with one another. And now there are only eight left, excluding pro tems Kelman and Lamb, Senior Fields thrust into the jobs.

"He may have been pumping Special Agent Joswig –" seeing the look on Gibbs face, she rapidly reconsiders, "I mean, using his connection to her to learn our systems, where we will be at any specific time, who will be using our vehicles and for what. For the want of ten seconds, Special Agent DiNozzo would have been right next to the car that killed Gaine and his team, four dead instead of three. I think that either the unknown was obtaining information from her or he had it from some other source. He may well have had access to our systems beyond what the Delphi Code protects. Natasha Klein and her people may have been part of a two pronged attack – hers failed and his succeeded.

"And while I have the floor," she continues, confidence bolstered by this opportunity to present the results of her own investigations to at least three truly attentive listeners, "remember when Mikel Mawher was stalking Abby and I thought it might be an inside person doing it? I think we are dealing with a false agent killing us from inside."

"Who do you suspect?"

Tim, Ziva and Tony are astounded that Gibbs takes this declaration without even blinking. He'd given her the floor and is apparently willing to follow along to where her conjectures lead. It remains only to see if they're correct.

x

Lee tries not to falter. She's talked herself into a verbal mine field, now it remains to see if she can safely navigate it. "Who stands to gain? Special Agents Davis' and Gaine's teams were wiped out. With the deaths of Supervisory Special Agents Joswig and DiMarco, their Senior Fields are now SSA Pro Tempore but where's the motive there?"

Both Gibbs and David could give answers to that one, both of them refuting the theory. Gibbs has been withholding the fact that Joswig and DiMarco had been in line as Deputy Director, soon to take over in the Maine Field Office, so advancement in one of those teams was a given. Ziva could tell the younger agent how badly devastated Melanie Kelman had been at her friend's murder.

The aspect and possibility of a motive for one of the two surviving teams is to be, consequently, very unpleasant.

x

"There's something I haven't told any of you," Gibbs announces, addressing the group. "The Director wanted it kept quiet, no point now. Both Joswig and DiMarco were in the final running to be named Deputy Director, and to take over in Maine on New Year's."

"Did either of them know?" DiNozzo asks. This puts an interesting, and unpleasant, spin on things.

"If so, they didn't hear it from me. I'll check with the Director, but my gut tells me 'no'." But we'll get back to that. Keep going, Lee."

x

Lee wishes she could keep going. She'd like a half hour or so to integrate this news into her theories, but she's not getting that half hour.

"Our killer is organized and highly methodical. He plots these murders to the second, and even the variables such as timer on the car bomb are kept to a minimum. He was, however, confident enough in his own ability to risk exposing himself at the Medical Center to kill Special Agent White. I believe he manufactured one or more of the emergencies that cleared and distracted the hospital staff, leaving him to deal with only one nurse.

"I think our killer is a dissatisfied individual who seeks self-promotion by killing anyone in his way to the top. By his very position he believes himself to be insulated from suspicion, therefore he will kill again. He may be a mole of McGillicuddy and Company or one of us who was conscripted or seduced by them, I can't guess. He may be someone with a record of disciplinary problems or unsatisfactory or barely satisfactory performance, someone who might find the field easier if he clears out some of the competition. He uses his position to plant bombs but he is not afraid to get out into the field and commit his own murders head on, even though he's a coward."

"How do you get that?" Gibbs asks, marveling at the straight faced contradiction.

"He killed White and Joswig in person but didn't go up against them in a fair fight, they never had a chance to defend themselves. He killed Special Agent White while she was sedated in Intensive Care and he shot Special Agent Joswig while she was… distracted." She tries to keep from blushing, plunging ahead and not letting herself think about it. "I also think he killed Parkerson by surprise, else her screams might have alerted the rest of DiMarco's team. He'll tie up loose ends, but he's a coward when doing so. No! Wait, I take that back. He's not a coward, he's … he's dishonorable."

"Better." Gibbs tells her, pleased by her revision. "Be careful your conclusions don't affect the direction of an investigation. Always use your head, not your heart."

"Rule 25, Boss?" To this point, there'd been 24.

"Get to work, DiNozzo, find me someone who fits that profile."

xxx

Fred Higgins enters his office, pleased to find it is empty for he has no desire to see or speak to anyone. On his desk lies a file folder, one he'd last used in the Interrogation of Nurse Tremont. The woman has been moved to a 'safe house' while they try to determine any threat to her life. Higgins wishes there were a safe house for the madness he and his friends are enduring.

Sitting down behind his desk, he opens the file. The first photograph in the pile is an all too familiar one. Looking at the face of his friend and colleague, he almost wishes his theory had been right. Better a suspect, however fleetingly, than dead.

Higgins is glad and relieved that he never had time to bring his inchoate suspicions to anyone. Bob DiMarco's innocence has been proven in the worst possible way.

xxx

It's 1700 when a general call goes out summoning the Team Leaders – and in two cases their successors – to MTAC. When the ten men and women, so recently twelve, take their places before Director Jennifer Shepherd, she wastes no words. "I have spoken to the SECNAV and received his approval for a prejudicial strike. In exactly five hours, NCIS will assault the building we believe to be the local headquarters of McGillicuddy, Crocetti and Morrison. At that same moment, NCIS forces worldwide will stage assaults upon all other identified strongholds of these people. With the exception of Zűrich, Switzerland, NCIS is assuming the offensive in this war.

"Special Agent Gibbs, you will coordinate the offensive in Virginia. All teams are to report to the armory, we leave at 2130."

xxx

Gibbs, having continued reading the multitude of reports that have come in over the course of the past few days, goes down to visit Abby.

"We're getting geared up to hit 'McGillicuddy, Crocetti and Morrison' tonight."

"Give them a bullet for me," Abby says, not looking back.

"Count on it. What've you got before we move out?"

Abby turns to him and he can read on her drawn face how overwhelmed she is. "'What've I got?' What _haven't_ I got? I've got explosive residue - _three sets_, frame, car and boat. Good news, they're all from the same source, the residue is virtually identical and it is _not_ from a legitimate manufacturer. It's homemade; I'm still trying to work out where home is but I'll let you know. In the meantime I've got blood samples, I've got clothing fibers, I've got metal slivers, I've got boat fragments, I've got fingerprints up the wazoo and that's a ticklish, sensitive place. I've got ballistics tests on three bullets from Marti - which by the way I identified as having come through the extended muzzle of a silencer - there are simply too many striations from rifling than can be accounted for without it - coupled with the fact that none of the neighbors heard anything. A silencer only quiets things, it doesn't silence anything, that's a fantasy, but her body muffled the shots as well.

"I've got hair follicles, dust particles, skin samples, I've got three different DNA tests running on _one_ machine - I keep switching them off so I don't fall behind on any one set but that is _not_ the way to do it. I'd _had_ the anti-brainwashing program running on the speakers in Interrogation One all day and McGee up my behind every half hour for status reports. He's been taking lessons from you and I really wish I'd used that rifle on his– well... when I had the chance and I am really glad that's _over_ and she's okay. I've got–" her breathless tirade is cut short by a low signal, "I've got a hit."

Gibbs is glad for the distraction, having had the feeling she could have gone on for several minutes had he or the machine not stopped her. Considering the pressure she has been under, he prefers it to be the machine that had interrupted.

The IAFIS unit displays a green bar in front of two fingerprint images, the bar proclaiming 'Positive Match'. A second later the image of the bearer of the fingerprints appears on the screen. As surprised as Abby is to see the face displayed, she's astonished to hear Gibbs' words.

"I want you to sit on this." When the computer offers the choice, 'Delete Search?' he takes the mouse from her hand and designates 'Yes'. The screen goes black.

"_Gibbs_! What are you–?" She stops at his raised finger, and is so shocked she stays silent as he pulls out his cell phone and presses a combination. He doesn't have long to wait,

"Ducky, that woman from the docks."

"Yes, I'm working on her now," the man answers tiredly. Over the past days he has had to do far too many autopsies, too many of them on friends.

"Where was the killer standing?"

"I'm inclined to say behind her."

"What direction was she murdered in?"

The odd phrasing of the question takes a moment to penetrate his tired mind. "To the left."

"Thanks, Duck. Get some sleep."

"I truly wish."

Gibbs closes the phone and turns his attention to Abby, who is straining to say something. "Keep this-" he points to the dark screen, "- to yourself."

"But _G_–!" she backs down under his glare. "You're the boss."

xxx

"Everyone get down to the garage, meet me there," Gibbs commands, not even pausing on his way to his desk, nor looking at the agents who prepare their equipment, delaying not a moment. They know what is at stake. "Not you, McGee," he countermands, then spends a few moments at his computer.

He pays no attention to the sounds of preparation around him, and when he finally does look up the entire Operations section is vacant save for McGee. He crosses the small workspace. "I want you to open Delphi, and then get down with the others."

"Boss, Delphi has been put on special restricted access by Director Shepherd's order, it now requires–"

"I know that, McGee, I was there. You weren't." He tries to lower his aggravation to a smolder, it is not easy. "I've already input my code. I want you to open it and walk away."

McGee is smart enough not to protest. Under present orders, no one agent may open or view the contents of the Delphi Files alone. Two Special Agents must be present as a check on just the dangers they'd faced with McGee's abduction. He also knows that Gibbs knows this order very well indeed, and if he intends to violate it...

Without a word, he inputs his identity code, opens the file and types 'Priority Code'. [Enter Priority Code] the computer directs him. 48619529618. Standing up, he walks out of the Squad Room as Gibbs takes his seat.

xxx

Gibbs enters the crowded garage, seeing three score agents strapping on body armor, checking Sigs and far more powerful weaponry. His and Melanie Kelman's teams have been ordered to wear black jackets without the 'NCIS Federal Agent' lettering in back or the shield representations in front, as well as plain black caps without the large white NCIS stitching. Gibbs has offered no explanations. His own people don't ask and Kelman's trust the orders will become clear in time. He knows it takes a certain amount of trust to walk into a firefight without the distinctive identifications; they'll have to trust some more because he has no intention of revealing his reason.

He looks over the sea of familiar faces, finding one in particular. "Lee!" When the petite woman, her armor half secured, turns to him he cocks his thumb to the side. "Out."

Appalled and outraged at having been singled out, she stalks up to him until they are inches apart, pitching her voice low. "You're putting me _out_?" She can hardly believe it.

"You're not in on this."

She glances back to where DiNozzo, McGee and David continue their preparations, ignoring the confrontation. Turning back, she lowers her voice even further but nothing dims the fire in her eyes. "If they're in, I'm –"

"I'm not arguing with you. You've never killed anyone. You've never been in combat; they have. We are at _war_ and we're going into combat. If we're right, then this place is the headquarters of the terrorists that have already killed nine of us - and if there is going to be any shooting we're going to shoot to _kill_." He watches the drive of his words darken her eyes.

"The day may come when you're going to have to face someone and put a bullet through his or her head. Can you, tonight, blow someone's brains onto the back wall?"

She wants to say 'yes', but knows her all-too-expressive face has already answered for her. "And suppose you're killed because I wasn't there to have your back?"

He draws his Sig, showing it to her, his voice barely audible. "Every day I strap this on I know it can be my last. Every time I have to _use_ it I send a piece of my soul along with the bullet and I never get it back. If I'm able to, I'm going to hold that off for you for at least one more day."

"So that's why you're treating me like a blushing bride?" She doesn't try to hide her frustration or anger.

"Call it a wedding present," he tells her as he points to the elevator door, unashamed of the lie. "Now get out of here before I boot your ass up that shaft."

He moves past her, not waiting for an answer.

x

He stops front and center before the ranks. "William Davis!" his 'Sergeant voice' fills the chamber with a driving cadence, every word a hammer blow, "Michael Carver, Catherine Marcos, Janet White!" The agents feel every name slam into their chests like iron clad fists, "Patrick Gaine, Margaret Calder, Edward Sheehan, Martine Joswig, Robert DiMarco! If our information is correct we're going to assault the terrorists who _murdered_ them."

Those assembled for this deadly confrontation can't miss Michelle Lee leaving on the elevator, looking back as the door opens, her face reflecting her shame, but Gibbs again locks their attention.

"We're going in. We're going to assault this stronghold. If _possible_ we'll make arrests but we are _not_ going to lose another man or woman! Capture if possible, but if fired upon you _will_ return force with deadly force. Your orders are shoot to _kill_."

He looks over the black clad force before him. "If anyone can't do this, step forward now."

There is a moment of utter silence, then from somewhere in the throng comes the sharp sound of a bullet being cocked into a chamber, followed by another and still more until all weapons are loaded and ready.

"Move out!"


	10. To the Death

Chapter Ten  
To the Death

For the NCIS, day or night, a single vehicle would be dispatched to deal with an investigation, possibly accompanied by the Crime Scene or Medical Examiner vans. Sometimes on special protection assignments a group of cars might move out. It's unheard of to see a convoy of vehicles cross the river and enter Virginia in an attitude of war.

This night thirty vehicles cross the river, their occupants grimly determined that they will confront the enemy on his home ground. They are prepared to either apprehend ... or to kill.

No communication passes between the cars. Everything that can be said has been said. Feelings of anger, rage and revenge, and thoughts more terrible still, move these vehicles inexorably toward their target.

A very nasty surprise awaits them when they turn onto the block where their objective stands. Their progress is blocked by rows of opposing vehicles.

In the lead car Jennifer Shepherd glares, outraged at the squadron of police, FBI and other vehicles that blocks their path and at the dozens of rotating red, blue, yellow and white lights that turn the Virginia street into a scene more appropriate to a 1980's disco. The number of official vehicles rivals their own, but where they had been approaching in stealth, this much light bathing the street can be seen for blocks around. Shepherd nearly leaps from her car, determined to make quick work of the intruding vehicles. She is not surprised to recognize the nearly balding man in his ubiquitous trench coat who comes out to meet her halfway.

"You want to explain what the FBI is doing here, Fornell?"

"I could ask you the same question about this caravan of NCIS vehicles."

"But you won't."

"No, we both know why you're here - and you are way outside your jurisdiction. What do you mean coming into the area looking like you're going to war?"

She struggles to keep her temper under control. "That building is the stronghold of a foreign power that has already cost the lives of nine NCIS Agents."

"I sympathize, believe me. I trust you have proof?"

"Oh, we have proof, plenty of it. We also _had_ the element of surprise until you people decided to turn this street into Club 54."

"Believe me, Director, you didn't have the 'element of surprise', you never did. It was the owners of that building who called the FBI, telling us you intended to stage this assault."

xx

As the caravan left the Navy Yard a half hour before, the trailing two vehicles angled right while the main body of the assault team turned left. These two vehicles move almost silently through the District, no communication between them until they'd arrive at their destination. The only communication between the occupants of these two cars had been a terse, one sentence command from Gibbs to Kelman: "Follow and say nothing."

Now, miles away on the Maryland border, seven black clad figures converge by the black cars and there are many things to say.

They are parked at the end of two rows of houses, many lighted, some not. All are recessed behind large manicured lawns and Gibbs, in unrelieved black, directs the agents' attentions to an unlit ranch house a third of the way down the left side of the block. It's an utterly anonymous home in the row of other equally placid, almost identical homes.

"Gibbs, would you mind telling us," Supervisor Pro Tem Melanie Kelman, in the forefront of her team, demands, "what the _hell_ we're doing here?"

"Did you really think that a day after they're given up, McGillicuddy and company are going to be sitting in their ivory tower waiting for us to hit it?"

"Well, no, but–"

"It's good tactics to cover up a small and quiet operation with a large and noisy one. The Director and the others are that loud and noisy distraction. If they hit the tower so much the better, but they won't find the targets. We _will_."

"How can you know they are here?"

He looks at the dark building. "The airstrip they need is less than a mile away, though they can't get clearance to take off without our say so. Only one person can get them that clearance after NCIS restricted them. That clearance hasn't been requested and will only be requested when it's too late for us to countermand it. Therefore, they can't be anywhere else."

"How do you _know_?" she demands again, fed up with his 'need to know' reticence.

"These houses are all laid out by the same cookie cutter," he notes, looking at the designs of those on both sides of the streets. The ones on his right are of particular interest, none of them show a door though they do show windows. "DiNozzo, you and Templeton take positions across the street and prepare for a frontal assault. McGee, you and Larsen take the back door. Ziva, you have this side's door. Kelman, you and I will swing wide behind the house and get in through a window."

Kelman restrains herself from answering with great difficulty. Her reply would be neither constructive nor polite.

x

The six agents, all dressed in black without Federal IDs highlighting their jackets, take positions as directed, with Gibbs and Kelman coming in low and then flanking either side of the single window on the far side. There's no light on in the building, yet Gibbs is certain their quarry lies in wait within.

His orders had been specific. In two and a half more minutes, break down the doors and, if resistance is met, shoot to kill.

He carefully and silently slides open the rear side window, ready to enter when he catches Kelman's expression. He ignores her reminder that there are over two minutes to go.

Kelman, having no choice, follows him into the blackness. No sooner do they stand within the building when heavy steel shutters close over the windows and the room's only door slams shut.

"You don't seem surprised, Gibbs," a voice from the blackness observes, "though I think I'd be disappointed if you were."

"I'm disappointed now. Turn on the lights so we can get better acquainted."

"Now Gibbs, I thought you knew me so well."

"Thought I did." The lights come up, revealing a black clad man beyond the drawing room desk, a gun in his steady hand. "Turns out I probably never knew you at all."

Melanie Kelman is outraged to be aiming her gun at the late Supervisory Special Agent Robert DiMarco.

x

"Please put your weapons down," the former agent requests. "I should truly hate to kill either of you."

"Don't be insulting. You know we either take you in or one or more of us die. It was always going to come to this." He steps away from the window, moving into the middle of the room, wanting some space to maneuver. Kelman keeps pace with him.

"I really wish it weren't you." DiMarco says.

"And who did you think would come after you?" Gibbs demands.

"Drop your guns. There is no way any of us can miss at this range."

Kelman looks to Gibbs, hardly believing it when he signals her to comply. She doesn't want to but he's the ranking officer and he clearly knows what the hell is going on. She obeys, her weapon falling to the carpeted floor, the impact muffled by the deep shag.

She is angrier when Gibbs does not relinquish his own gun.

x

Gibbs would have liked to confront the man alone, unfortunately that is not to be. This is the reason he'd removed Lee from the team when he'd discovered, in Abby's lab, who they were hunting. He holds his gun steady upon his old friend. Outside the room simultaneous crashes explode from three sides of the house and the first of the gunshots erupt, shattering the night.

"I knew you'd put it together," DiMarco admits, unfazed by the gunfire. "I'd hoped for another hour and we'd have been gone. How did you find me?"

"This place belongs to your nephew and his family, who use it this late in the season only on weekends. You can thank Delphi for that bit of news. There weren't too many safe houses for you people to hide out."

"You don't seem surprised to see me, Gibbs."

"I'd have been disappointed if you _weren't_ here." Knowing the man as he does, he'd even known what room to assault.

"She's surprised," DiMarco waves the gun in the direction of the woman beside Gibbs.

He won't be distracted. "I'd hoped I could convince you to–"

"To what? Turn myself in? Plead for the mercy of the court? We both know it's gone way too far for that."

"Why?" Of all possible things, this is the only question Gibbs truly wants answered. "You let your _own team_ watch you 'die'. You killed eight of us. You set the bombs in Arlington and at the Café, you broke into the hospital to poison White–"

"I got lucky then. I managed to get into Pediatrics and contaminated a saline IV. Not fatally but seriously enough to spark an emergency. I never expected _three_ 'Codes', but they caused such chaos they almost emptied the ICU."

Gibbs is appalled at the casual way his friend describes the heartless assault on a child, but "You betrayed _everyone_ who trusted you, everyone who knew you!" His voice rises with his rage. "What can _they_–" he points sharply to the outer hall and the gunfire beyond, his booming voice almost loud enough to drown it out, "have offered that made it worth that?"

"Power."

"_Garbage_!"

"I've devoted twenty five years of my life to NCIS and what has it gotten me? Where can I go with it? What real chance of promotion unless you play politics like Shepherd? Well, I finally decided to play politics - but not the kind they thought.

"I used to believe in the system, in right and wrong, in the American Way. What has it gotten me? We are living to support a _system_, but in the end what do we go home to? We support the status quo, what is it that we live for?"

x

"I know what _I_ live for," Gibbs counters, disgusted with the former agent's reasons. "What do you _kill_ for?"

"In the days to come, in the years to come, there will be changes, my old friend. The things we stand for will be gone, the old ways will have passed away and new–"

"_Garbage_, I said. You killed eight of us, your fellow agents, men and women who trusted you and called you their friend! If you didn't plant the bombs yourself you still made it possible. But the one person who would have caught on to you eventually was Marti, so you used your relationship with her to kill her. But it was the DNA tests – and the Paternity Test – that did you in."

"What do you mean? _What_ Paternity test?" For the first time, DiMarco seems unsure.

"YOU killed Marti?" Kelman demands, surprise overwhelmed by fury as she cuts off Gibbs' answer.

"He was her lover." He turns back to DiMarco. "Your fingerprints were all over that apartment. Marti did a good job in cleaning, but you can't get everything. We might not have caught on for quite some time since we don't normally look among _ourselves_ for a traitor, but we would have caught on eventually, so after you removed her as a threat to you, you had to remove yourself.

"You got lucky that one of these people tried to turn herself in. She never recognized you as a Double Agent but it allowed you to remove a threat and fake your own death - with your _Team_ as witnesses." He can't convey his contempt for the man; it's too great for words. "You'd had your 'out' prepared, C4 hidden in your jacket."

Outside, the shots continue, but they're less frequent. One side is winning. He prays it is the right side.

x

Gibbs holsters his gun, showing he doesn't intend to draw on his old friend, but he isn't going to drop the gun either. Outside the room, gunshots come from all angles as the three sided battle continues.

"Everything since Klein and her people failed to break the 'Delphi Code' has been you. You murdered Janet White. Higgins didn't believe it was you when Nurse Tremont picked out your photo but it was enough for me to check with Ducky. When you broke Parkerson's neck you did it from behind, but twisted to the left, your strong side. But you still haven't told us _why_."

"It's actually simple. When the NCIS, CID, CGIS, OSI, all those that support and defend our boys and girls and their dependants, fall, the defenseless dependants will be targeted, demoralizing the troops and leading to mass desertions. Men and women will come home in waves to defend their loved ones at home, decimating the ranks and clearing the way for a massive strike on all fronts, a war of terror throughout the nation that will lead to the ultimate collapse of American society."

Gibbs and Kelman, outraged though they are, are now sure of one thing: the man before them is mad.

"What do you get out of this?" Gibbs demands.

"Maryland."

"Come again?" Outside, the shooting steadily decreases. One side is clearly winning. He prays again that it's the right side.

"When America finally falls, I'll be rewarded with what's left of Maryland."

x

"You did all this," Kelman says tightly, unable to believe that so many friends have died for a madman's scheme of power, "you betrayed everyone who trusted you, everything we believe in - everything _you_ believed in - for _power_?"

"What more is there? Did you think after twenty five years I was going to settle for a gold watch? I've been a Supervisor all these years, there's nothing higher for me to aspire to - in the current system, but -,"

He's interrupted by pounding from the door, a multitude of agents' voices cutting through it. It's clear who's won. DiMarco raises his gun, about to fire.

x

Melanie Kelman has always excelled in math. Before she turns and steps in front of Gibbs, facing him, her mind instantly calculates the reaction time of DiMarco's reflexes, distance of the gun, speed of the bullets and how fast she has to be to get in front of Gibbs before the bullets reach him.

She makes it.

The impacts of the three closely spaced bullets are hammer blows as they slam into the back of her protective vest. She yanks Gibbs' gun from his belt, whirls and that same talent for lightning calculations allows her to put the bullet through the center of the traitor's forehead.

x

The battering at the door increases as Robert DiMarco's head snaps back, utter astonishment on his face as his body topples backward to slam to the floor. Gibbs gets around the gasping woman, grateful for her protection even as he goes to the body of his old friend.

Heavy blows batter the resisting wood as Gibbs kneels beside the body. DiMarco stares up at the ceiling, his sightless eyes lost, the glow of life extinguished. Blood from the large hole behind his head soaks the carpet.

"Is it over?" Kelman asks softly. "Did we win?"

"It's over." He looks from DiMarco back to the pale woman, trying to mask his sorrow. "We won."

"Good," she sighs softly. As the door crashes inward in a shower of splinters she drops to her knees, then pitches forward and slams face down onto the carpet, her back awash in blood.


	11. Goodbye

Chapter Eleven  
Goodbye  
Epilogue One

"We are gathered here this afternoon, in the presence of God, to pay homage to our Honored Dead." NCIS Chaplain Siobhan O'Mallory's soft voice, picked up by the small microphone attached to her chasuble's collar and aided by a multitude of speakers, fills the tremendous National Cathedral high atop Mount Saint Alban. She wears plain white vestments, the chasuble embroidered in the center by a single gold cross. The long white stole draped before her blends into the silk of the large vestment, understated purity in the face of death.

Before her row upon row upon row of somber agents and their families form a sea of grim faces of every shade and ethnicity, stretching far back beyond her ability to distinguish. NCIS Agents by the hundreds mingle with men and women of uncounted Law Enforcement organizations, all joined in a brotherhood of grief. The tremendous Cathedral comfortably holds over a thousand and is pressed beyond all limits. All before her bear one thing in common, hundreds of them wear identical and familiar gold shields covered with a band of mourning black, hundreds more wear a vast variety of silver or gold shields, also banded in honor and lamentation.

Arrayed on tall gold stands in the front of the nave, visible all the way to the narthex and lined up before the Sanctuary to face the assembled throng, are large color portraits of five men and four women. Each of them is bordered in ribbons of purple and black and accented by a variety of flowers.

It has been a week since the climactic events in Maryland, a week overfull with funerals and grief.

Nine funerals have been scattered over days and miles of the city and surrounding states, two were held far off and all who could had flown out and back. This late afternoon Memorial Service Chaplain O'Mallory leads is crafted to conform to the particulars of numerous Faiths, so all present are joined now as one to say 'goodbye' to nine of their own.

In the congregation Siobhan can see so many familiar faces, a vast number of unfamiliar ones. The first rows are reserved, without distinction, for the families of the dead, mingled together as one in grief. All have come to mourn now as one family.

Nearly all present know that there is one more of the NCIS family who might well have been remembered here today, but the image of Supervisory Special Agent Melanie Kelman, recipient of the Medal for Conspicuous Gallantry, is not among the portraits arrayed before the Altar. She is in Bethesda Hospital, yet present and watching through closed circuit telecast.

The nine agents depicted in the row of portraits, universally honored and given their equal places in History, are together with the mourners here yet also in that land that cannot be seen. Siobhan prays that, in the interest of mercy more than justice, they can all be together.

xx

The hour passes heavily for all. Recollections of too many departed are made by families and friends. The afternoon Memorial is followed by a reception and, many hope, an opportunity to begin the healing. Healing, they all know, will come slowly for many and slower still for others, yet they try as one to begin.

More than a thousand had filled the Cathedral, far fewer than that can fit into the smaller rooms and by tacit agreement that is left to families and Headquarters Division NCIS, the other uniformed and non-uniformed men and women having departed. In the end, all who are closest to the fallen are present, still a solemn throng.

Jennifer Shepherd, clad in somber black, stands speaking with an equally dark Abby Sciuto when Donald Mallard steps up to them, his quiet voice not carrying to any others. "I would like to thank you, Director, for including Robert in this Service. He had been a good man for many years, who I believe only in the end lost his way."

Jennifer nods. "I've spoken to the SECNAV, we're all in agreement. The details of that night will remain a Navy and NCIS Secret. Officially Robert DiMarco died in the Line of Duty in an explosion caused by a terrorist bomb. That's the way his final record originally read and we see no reason to change it. For twenty five years he'd been a fine agent and his family isn't going to hear anything different." His had been one of several closed casket funerals several days ago, his 'dismembered and largely unrecoverable' body having been blown over an unknowable area of the river.

Only a very few people know there had actually been a body in that coffin.

x

Gibbs had told her that, knowing who they were going up against, he had kept Agent Lee out of the final battle, uncertain yet if he could depend upon her discretion. She is one of the multitude who doesn't know who had been found at the safe house. He'd called on the way, giving her an assignment to follow up on certain leads; she had produced results, but what he had wanted was simply to keep her distracted. He'd taken the results.

Only those who already know will ever know what had happened that night.

x

Ducky nods in gratitude and he and Abby drift away to mingle with others. Jennifer turns to find Gibbs standing behind her.

"Jethro."

"Jenn."

"How are you holding out?" she asks, looking up into his grim eyes.

"Every time I think of how bad it was, I realize it could have been worse. Kelman was the most seriously wounded, but she'll be on her feet in over a month, back on the job in three. As to the rest," he looks out over the multitude that has stayed for the reception, "we'll heal. The backbone of McGillicuddy, Crocetti and Morrison is broken here. We got nineteen of the leaders, found their records." None of this is news to her, it's only something to be said because something has to be said. Some perspective has to be put on the murders of eight friends by a man they'd all called friend.

"I've been consulting daily with Director Matthews," she tells him, referring to the Army CID leader, "as well as the heads of all the other Agencies. They weren't hit as hard as we were because none of their people had been corrup– compromised." She wishes she knew how her old friend had been 'compromised' and why she hadn't seen it. "This is a joint operation, classified at the top level. You and your team are not on it. Neither are the FBI, CIA, State … but Matthews and I and all the others agree we will walk hand in hand into _Hell_ before we let another Agent die."

x

Gibbs knows this will take months, but he's wise enough to ask no questions. The war is going to be carried to the enemy, and it will be devastating and terrible.

She takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. "I've attached Templeton and Larsen to Lamb's team until Kelman's on her feet. Meantime she has said she doesn't want the SSA, Templeton does and…"

"Are you asking me?"

She shakes her head. "Talking." She looks around the crowded room. "There aren't a lot of people I can talk to."

He notes, once again, that she hasn't said a word about Joswig in particular. Martine had been on Franks' team with him even before Shepherd had come aboard, and they four had served several years together in a tight knit team. "If you were asking me, I'd tell you there's a lot of good in that woman. I think she can handle it."

"Even though she doesn't want it?"

"Even though."

She smiles. "I'll take it under advisement."

x

"McGillicuddy and the others will be going down all over the world … and we'll heal."

She nods, having no spirit for more. There's nothing here that is new to her, or to him. In the end, there are only words that would try to comfort, and in the end they're empty. For Gibbs - and Shepherd - mourning is not a communal thing. Some mourning is best done alone.

"Can I ask you something – just between you and me?" His voice is low, private.

"What is it?"

"About that search for a new Deputy Director."

She doesn't want to discuss this now, but then decides she should. It will - it may - help begin her own healing. The temporary DD would have filled the SAIC post scheduled to open up in Maine with the new year. "Yes?"

"You narrowed the selection to DiMarco and Joswig; then you never mentioned it again. Now that they're both gone, who will you choose?"

"I'd already made a choice two weeks ago. I was originally going to announce it next Monday, then this nightmare started." She looks up into his eyes, her own haunted.

"I chose Bob DiMarco."

Epilogue Two

Tim McGee had, at Siobhan's request, picked her up at the Rectory earlier today on the way to the Cathedral. She'd told him she wanted time to think prior to the afternoon Service and yet on the way back, long after darkness has fallen, he can't help but notice she's considerably quieter, more preoccupied, than she'd been on the way out.

Rather than parking on the street, he drives into the large parking lot at the rear of the Church, stopping near the Rectory door. The gate is normally closed after dark, he supposes Father Donaldson had left it open for her.

He turns off the car because she doesn't make a move to get out, maybe she wants to talk now. After the brainwashing nightmare and then waking up to a nightmare of death, followed by so many funerals she had to attend even if she didn't participate followed by the long hours at this Memorial, he supposes she has a lot to talk about.

But she still doesn't say a word, and he doesn't want to intrude on her thoughts. "Good night," he finally says, reaching out to touch her arm. She places her own hand over his.

"Timmy, would you come inside?"

This surprises him. It's after nine at night. They had been the last to leave the Cathedral, she'd had to be present and available to the multitude that came to her for solace and now it's very late for both of them, but he supposes she's as deeply affected as any of them. Having barely recovered, if that's not too optimistic a word, from her own nightmare, she'd been immediately thrust into this one. After a week of funerals, for hours she's had to absorb the grief and loss of so many people; he supposes she needs the help now. Not only can he see how tired she is, he can hear it as well in her stronger than usual brogue, clear testament to him of her fatigue and stress.

Even more than this, he's surprised by the late evening - night time - invitation because he can't forget her caution in presenting a public image that is carefully proper, particularly when around him. Whether it had been at her former apartment or any other location, she never allowed herself to be seen entering anyplace with him if there was no one else present. Of course, Father Donaldson is inside, and there are no parishioners or staff around this late at night, but it's still unusual for her.

"Sure."

They get out of the car, cross to the door of the two story building and she unlocks it. He's surprised, when they enter the foyer before the living room door he sees that the lights are out. Before she opens the glass door and turns the lights on, he sees that other lights are also off.

When she removes her jacket and hangs it on a stand near the door, it's quite obvious they're alone.

"Where's Father Donaldson?" he asks, if only to get her to say something.

"I asked him not to be here when we got back."

x

This is surprising enough to make him more curious, but she doesn't seem to be able to bring herself to elaborate. She steps away from the door, past the tall grandfather clock, stops by the couch at the right, seemingly uncertain what to say or do. It's several seconds before she turns around.

"Would you like some tea?" she finally manages to ask.

"No, thank you." While he would like some, he knows that if he says 'yes' she'll divert her attention into making the tea and probably not tell him why she's so somber, so unlike herself.

He looks her over, but her appearance is utterly familiar. He could close his eyes at any hour and see her – and he would certainly never tell her that. She wears slacks against the cool night and her light blue back-button Clerical shirt with wraparound two inch high white collar is an all too familiar image. Her shirt is the long sleeved version of what she'd worn all this past summer but "No more skirt?"

She blinks, surprised at the question. "Getting out of the season for it," she points out.

"I'll miss it," he tells her, meaning far more than his words express. She picks up on his tone, but it only makes her more uncomfortable, not less.

"Actually, it's kind of one of the things I wanted to talk about."

"A skirt." He very much doubts it. It hardly explains her mood.

"No, not a skirt, and not just Enkiss, just ... everything."

x

She sits down on the couch though he stands near the door. He senses that beyond her exhaustion there's much deeper tension, tension she's trying to hide and displaying it all so much more for the effort. He doesn't break in, letting her choose how she'll say whatever's on her mind.

"There are times," she admits softly, not looking at him but directly at the bookcase straight ahead, "that I truly wish I drank. Tonight I could wish to be drunk, to forget everything."

"What would you forget?" he asks as softly, stepping closer. He can think of many things, a full week of funerals actually being the least of them.

She shakes her head, admitting that she can't forget. "I needed to see you, wanted to thank you. My head hasn't exactly been screwed on lately. I never did get the chance to thank you - _properly_ - for what you did." She's still not looking at him, speaking toward the television set across the room next to the bookcase. "Abby worked hard in putting my head back on, and I'll always be grateful to her, but _you _were the one who was there throughout everything, the one who sacrificed for me - and I never managed to thank you as you deserve. You've always been there for me, perhaps more than I deserve."

"Never more then you deserve. Maybe never as _much_ as you deserve." He wonders if she can hear his meaning. He doubts it. But at least she finally looks at him.

"But I really needed to talk to you. There's something I have to say, something that can't wait." She looks about, evading his eyes. In all her attempts to speak no words can come.

x

"Shav?" he calls after the silence has dragged painfully, makes her look at him, "for something that can't wait, it's sure waiting a long time."

"Yes, it is," she whispers.

x

"How are you?" he asks to break the next silence.

"Well, that's kind of what I wanted to talk about," she admits uncomfortably, turning toward him upon the couch. "How are _you _- and Ziva?"

"I'm afraid there _is_ no 'me and Ziva', not anymore."

She nods sadly. "Abby told me last week that you two broke up." She looks away, but visibly forces herself to turn back. "I'm sorry. Is there no chance you'll get back together?"

"No." He's surprised at the stung look in her eyes. Why would it hurt her that he and Ziva...? "Workplace relationships - it wasn't going to work. I think in the end we were both holding on but mistaking friendship for love. We were both trying to hold onto something that we'd …" he hunts for a word, "outgrown. It's best over."

He reflects that his being able to say this with mild regret but no pain probably means that in his heart he _has _moved on. They'd thought they'd loved each other, now they can get back to being friends - in time. When she starts speaking to him. "There'll be hard times for a while; she's kind of not speaking to me for the past week, but we'll work it out."

"I'm sorry," she whispers.

"It was my fault, I was a jerk." He's not going to tell her the fiery details – ever. "But in the end, just too many things happened. We were either going to grow apart or one day the job was going to kill us."

x

There is at least one good thing about this, he thinks. Shav had been so concerned, ever since that kiss in the park so many weeks ago, that she was in danger of coming between them. Since then he's had a lot of time to think, quite intently, and now...

"I know the feeling," she says softly. "That's kind of what I wanted to see you about."

"What?" he urges. So far everything she's mentioned has been 'kind of' or 'sort of' or 'almost' what she wants to say. Her brogue, usually melodious, is thick with emotion.

x

She looks around, unable to meet his eyes, taking in the room instead. She can't sit still, standing up and walking away, crossing the room to the bookcase in the far corner, seeking strength in prayer and solace in not being able to look at him.

"It's been too much," she sighs. Now that the moment is here she's not sure how to say it, only that she must. "This place is full of memories, lately of the worst kind." She never thought this room could feel so dismal. She'd never before imagined looking at a bookcase and feeling miserable.

"First Tina was murdered, then Chrissie. They never found Christa's body. Then Charlie Morley. Then you brought me into Enkiss which I never expected. After months I'm _still_ not sure how to _fit in _to it. Then Mawher, Cearbhall, Samson, McFadden, Whitney, then nine of your people are murdered and every night I have _nightmares_ that some minute the phone's going to ring and Special Agent Gibbs or Jennifer is going to tell me that _you_ –" She can't finish - she'd ended in a rush but she can't bear to think this - and it'd been too many nightmares.

She turns to him, trying to force herself to speak directly to him. "It's too _much_! Too much to deal with. I pray so hard to endure each calamity and a few days later there's another calamity. I don't know how you can cope. I can't. I can't … cope. I can't cope." She hides her eyes, unable to endure his seeing her weakness, her dissolution. She turns away, turns back again.

"I have to go away."

x

"A vacation?" For a second his mind flashes to a _joint_ vacation, quite a pleasant thought if he could ever dare express it. "Good idea. Where would you go?"

"Reykjavik." She tries to manage an ironic laugh but she can't dredge up any humor.

"You can't stand the cold," he reminds her. "But maybe you should get away for a while, clear your mind, come back fresh."

She shakes her head, "No, Timmy," she denies softly, sadly, forcing herself to look into his trusting eyes. "You don't understand. I don't mean a Sabbatical. I said I have to go _away_."

"What?" He hears her meaning, the utter finality of her message, in her voice, but he doesn't _want _to understand her.

"I'm leaving."

x

Seeing his distress, she prays for the strength to face his coming pain and her own. "I've spoken with Father Donaldson. This is something I've been thinking about on and off ever since Tina and Chrissie were murdered, but it took everything that happened over the past few weeks for me to finally make up my mind. I'm leaving St. Mary's, leaving Enkiss, I'm … leaving."

"You _can't_ leave!" he blurts, taking a step closer before he can halt himself. This is horrible - he is just getting –

"Why?" She knew he'd be upset, but is surprised by his fire.

"Well, you're - you - you're needed _here_!"

"I'm not leaving in the morning, if that's what you're afraid of." She tries to force a smile of reassurance but can't. "In the morning my Letter of Resignation I gave George goes to the Senior Warden of the Vestry, and then I have to file my Request for Transfer with the Bishop's office. It'll take time - weeks - to find and assign a replacement. I can't leave George to run this place by himself, it's too big a job. I'll stay on until I'm replaced, and it'll take just as long to find a posting for me, it's not likely to be an even trade. I also have to meet with Jennifer, there are so many unfinished things. I also have to give my shield back–"

"What'll you _do_?" He tries not to sound frantic but can barely help himself. He had no warning this was going to happen and the shock of–

She shrugs. "I've spent my entire career as a Supply Priest, as Interim in one Parish after another. These two years have been the longest I've stayed in any one place. I've sort of gotten used to the transient life."

"But where will you _go_?" Another part of the city he can stand; Maryland or Virginia he could endure, but...

"Who can tell? The way things are today there are _always_ Parishes somewhere in the world in need of a Priest."

"The _wor_ –! Bu - but - we just worked so _hard_ ensuring you could stay _here_!"

"I know that," she insists, unaware of how strong her brogue is becoming as she struggles for control. "And believe me I'm more grateful than I can tell you. But this whole situation has only driven home the fact that it's come time to go." She can't mask how painful this is; inside she's as fractured as Tim is. She struggles to latch onto her training not to show it, and utterly fails.

x

"But Shav, I - but - I - you -"

"I wanted to tell you myself, here and now, before I tell Jennifer. I didn't want you to hear about this third hand."

"But _Shav_ - how could you - just - _leave_?" He feels his world dropping out from under him.

"I just told you, I can't stay." She turns away to the bookcase, seeking solace in not seeing him. Books have always been a solace for her, now they're empty. "And right now, well, there's very little left here for me," she sighs. "A while ago I'd have needed a moving van, now everything I have to my name could fit into three suitcases."

"_No_, I mean you have so much _more_ you _can't_ leave behind!"

She shakes her head, not looking back. "What more is there?"

This is the end. He _has_ to say it. He can't keep it inside any longer!

"There's _me_."

x

She shakes her head so hard her red hair flies, "Timmy, I–"

"When you had to confront the one you love, your _true _love, you chose me."

"Right," her voice cracks, "I tried to put a _bullet_ through your face! That's a fine way to–"

"You _love_ me." She turns to him, her pain clear on her face. "Just as I love you."

"Timmy, I–" she can't find the words, pain makes her lose them. She turns away again, feeling tears sting her eyes. "Please don't make this harder!"

She _can't_ love him, not if she must lose him again. She lost him once before and the hurt of that– No! If she must lose him again this time, she wants to keep away, before they get – before they're forced apart by the demands of his life or hers. She can't _stand_ that, not _again_! "_Please _don't make it harder."

"Don't make it harder?" he repeats incredulously. "It's tearing my _heart _out! How much 'harder' can it be?"

"Timmy–" She wants to say it, but she can't. She _has_ to deny her heart, cannot let him know that–

"You remember what you once told me," he reminds her, "that 'God never allows us to have more challenges than we can handle with His help. He gives us just enough to remind us to call on Him for that help.' Call on Him now, Shav, and I'll answer."

"Timmy..." Can't he see how her heart is breaking under his words? To one day be ordered away, maybe half a world away– She can't bear the pain of that future for them.

x

"I love you, Shav."

He sees the full force of his words hit her and she turns to him but this time he doesn't back off. _Finally_ he doesn't back off.

"It's taken me all this time to be able to say it again, out loud, but I do _love_ you. I don't believe the day came, despite the distance, despite the years, when I ever stopped loving you. Even years ago, when I realized that we'd never see each other again you were always in my heart. I lost you once before. I can't lose you again. I _won't_ lose you again!"

He steps closer, his words hitting her soul so hard she can't turn away. "Michelle told me once about 'soul-mates', I didn't understand her then but now I do. You and I, Shav, we're soul-mates, _destined_ to be together. That's why we keep getting thrown together, over and over, no matter how many years come in between. I didn't understand Michelle, I don't understand her Wicca, I don't even understand ourreligion most times _or_ the Will of God but I do know this: I love you, Shav. I always have." He sees the tears glistening in her eyes but he can't stop. He's stopped too often. It's too late to stop, because if he does he'll lose her and his soul.

"Distance, years - for a long time I couldn't get past that white collar but now I know." He steps closer, inexorably approaching, "for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health," he stops directly before her, "'till death do us part I love you."

She turns from him, her trembling shoulders the visible sign of her pain. Her breath is coming in erratic gasps as she cries quietly. "Timmy," she can barely whisper, "I - _can't_. It can't–" She pulls her glasses off, wipes her eyes and turns to him, looking up at him blindly. "Timmy, it _can't_ –!"

"Put your glasses on, Shav," he commands.

"Wha–?"

"You never change. You cannot lie to my face - to anyone's. That's why you _always _do that. Well it's not going to work. Put them on, look me square in the eyes and tell me you do not love me. Tell me that and I'll stop. I'll walk away and let you go."

She squeezes her eyes shut, unable to stop the tears that slip down her cheeks. Her voice strangles to a whisper. "It ... won't ..._work_! It _can't_! Don't you _understand_? My _life's _not my _own_! Don't you _understand_? I'm here by Contract. I could be ordered out of here on any day. Next March the Vestry could decide they don't want me anymore. Or the Bishop could decide I'm needed elsewhere and I'd have to go - and you're - you're–"

"You think NCIS is any different? Washington's not my first posting nor will it be my last and I don't give a _damn_ about any of that! I'm not going to give you up because of what _might_ happen some year off, not when I've come so _close_."

x

She can't turn away, but can't face him either. Unable to endure it any longer, her hand pressed to her mouth to muffle her sobs, she's too afraid. If she _must_ lose him someday she wants the pain to be brief, to be over, before their hearts–

"You have been _trying_ for two years to get me to see past that collar, to see you as much a woman as a Priest. Well, now I _do_ and I know I love you. For a long time I couldn't say it, couldn't even admit it to myself. I _thought_ I loved Ziva. Maybe I did but we were never meant for one another. She and I couldn't work, not when every day I think of you, _dream_ of you."

"I dream about you too, Timmy." Her whisper trembles, she can't stop her tears, can't look up to him. "I - I -"

"Put them on, Shav, look me square in the eyes and tell me you do _not_ love me." Siobhan puts her glasses back on, but throws her arms about his neck, pulls him to her. Their kiss is filled with everything they have for one another.

x

x

x

It's a very long time later that Siobhan draws back, reaches into the pocket of her pants and pulls out her cell phone. All the while Tim holds her, never willing to let her go ever again.

She activates a speed dial combination and doesn't have long to wait for an answer. "George ... could I ask a favor? Yes, that letter - would you please tear it up? I've - I've changed my mind, I'm sta– I'd like– I _want_ to stay." She listens to the voice, her determined expression fading. "Oh," she says, her voice very small. She lets the phone close and slips it back into her pocket.

"What did he say?" Tim fears the decision has come too late.

Siobhan smiles. "He tore it up three hours ago."

This kiss is longer than the first.

_Fin._

Season One Complete.

x

Season Two, Episode One: Butterfly Affair:  
The astonishing discoveries of a dead Naval Officer and a mysterious woman launch the Agents on their strangest case.


End file.
